A Midlothian police officer who started a sexual relationship with a teenage girl who made a rape allegation and then begged her to destroy evidence of their contact has been jailed.
PC Gavin Donaldson, 45, was helping to investigate the allegations of sexual assault and domestic abuse made by 17-year-old victim Anisha Yaseen when he took advantage of his position.
The married father-of-one and the vulnerable teen exchanged close to 30,000 messages during their consensual four year romantic relationship.
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But when the disgraced PC was being investigated by Police Scotland’s anti-corruption unit he bombarded the woman with requests to delete all their contact and not to hand her mobile phone over to officers.
Donaldson pleaded guilty to a charge of attempting to pervert the course of justice over two days in November 2020 when he appeared at Edinburgh Sheriff Court last month.
He also had not guilty pleas to six charges of conducting searches on the police system without consent accepted by the Crown.
Prosecutor Joanna Waller told the court the disgraced officer first met Ms Yaseen when she was just 17 and while he was investigating her allegations of serious sexual assault and domestic abuse in May 2016.
The court heard Donaldson, of Dalkieth, Midlothian, gave the teenager his work and personal email addresses and attended at her home on several occasions.
The pair were then said to have been in “daily contact over four years” and there had been 28,133 WhatsApp and Snapchat messages and a further 200 emails exchanged between them.
The fiscal depute said the officer and the woman were in “a consensual sexual relationship” that did not involve sexual intercourse.
The court heard a police anti-corruption investigation into the officer uncovered the relationship in November 2020 and he was immediately placed on “restricted duties”.
During the police investigation Donaldson made a desperate 40 minute phone call to Ms Yaseen begging her to delete all the messages between them and not to hand over her mobile phone.
The officer was suspended from duties on November 25, 2020 and he later resigned from the force.
In sentencing yesterday (THU) Sheriff Douglas Keir said: “This is a very serious offence, involving your attempts to instruct a vulnerable young woman to destroy evidence of the relationship you had conducted with her.
“You first met this young woman in the course of your police duties investigating allegations by her of domestic abuse. You maintained contact with her, engaged in frequent communication with her and then formed a consensual sexual relationship with her.
“When you suspected that Police Scotland were investigating you in relation to that relationship, you repeatedly instructed her to delete all evidence from her phone of all communications you had had with her, suggested to her that she did not hand over her phone to investigating police officers and attempted to influence what she should say to those police officers.
“All of this was done while you were a serving police officer which is a significant aggravating factor.”
The sheriff jailed Donaldson for 14 months.
Ms Yaseen, now 23, bravely waived her anonymity and read out an emotional statement to press outside court following last month’s hearing.
She said she was “a product of failed systems in Scotland” and at the time did not realise she was being “groomed” by the police officer.
She added: “To know that he has admitted his guilt, is to me, his confirmation that the stable period in my life was a lie - something I don’t know how to come to terms with.”
Ms Yaseen also asked for any other potential victims of Donaldson to come forward and report him.
Chief Superintendent Catriona Henderson, of Police Scotland, said: “Gavin Donaldson abused his position and his behaviour does not represent Police Scotland's values or standards of professional behaviour.
“It is right that policing is held to high standards. Those, like Donaldson, who reject what we stand for, don’t belong in Police Scotland.
“When this matter came to light, we took swift action to hold him to account. Had he remained a serving officer, the circumstances of his offences would now be considered for misconduct proceedings.”
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