Detective made sex phone calls

A detective, who posed as a BT engineer in an elaborate ruse to bombard women with hundreds of sexually explicit phone calls, was placed on probation yesterday. Magistrates at Basingstoke, Hampshire, were told that Detective Constable Ian Thomas, 37, would choose telephone numbers at random - and on one evening made more than 50 calls from the police station where he worked.

Thomas, of Farnborough, Hampshire, who has since resigned from the Hampshire Constabulary, admitted seven specimen charges of improper use of a telecommunications system. As well as being put on probation for two years, with an order that he undergo treatment on a sex offender's programme, he was also ordered to pay each of his six victims pounds 75 compensation.