In all 45-year-old Omagh-based inspector Derek John Robinson, arrested following a 15 month uncover investigation known as ‘Operation Cormorant’ between October 1995 and February 1997, pleaded guilty to a total of 17 charges.

    Craigavon Crown court, sitting in Belfast heard that Robinson, described by his defence QC Charles Adair as a broken man, used his position as a prosecuting inspector to get his friends lighter magistrate court sentences.

    Jailing him trial judge Mr Justice McLaughlin said he’d admitted “a proverbial catalogue of offences which would make even a hardened criminal blush and in the case of a police officer, let alone one of high rank, constitutes infamous conduct on your part”.

    He added that in the early years the conduct of Robinson, described as a “high-flyer” within the RUC, rapidly rising through the ranks to become an inspector within ten years, had been above reproach.

    But that by the early 1990s he had “lost his way” and from 1992 to 1997 allowed his “blatant professional misconduct and dishonesty, motivated by greed, to become an integral part of your life”.

    The court also heard that from his inspector’s office Robinson also ran a motor insurance scam. The RUC man, who had a passion for motoring, would carry out repairs on vehicles and then claim for them, telling the insurance companies the repairs had been carried out by authorised dealers.

    On other occasions he would clock the mileage of cars which he bought in England and sold to unsuspecting motorists in the north.

    Robinson’s 33-year-old girlfriend Jocelyn Louise Serplus, an RUC constable, whose address was also given as Omagh RUC Station, who wrote him a bogus letter for presentation to a magistrate four years ago for one of his friends in a driving case, was freed on 100 hours of community service.

    Mr Justice McLaughlin said but for Robinson’s influence over her she would never have helped in perverting the course of public justice to which she pleaded guilty.

    Her lawyer Brian McCartney said Serplus was “greatly shamed” for what she had done and now realised it was “wholly wrong and stupid”.

    A 34-year-old Strabane father of two, Martin Carnes, whose address was given as c/o Melmount Road in the border town, who earned £,2000 from one of Robinson’s insurance scams and also helped to ‘clock’ the mileage on a car was freed on a suspended six month sentence after the judge ruled he wasn’t “the prime mover” in either offence.

    Mr Justice McLaughlin told Robinson that his offences relating to perverting justice were “particularly serious”, causing as they did “harm to the prosecution and judicial systems which must be kept beyond reproach at all times”.

    However, he added while Robinson’s crimes represented a “serious breach of trust, a grave dereliction of duty” it would appear he was not motivated by greed in this instance, which was the main factor in his favour.

    Mr Justice McLaughlin told Robinson: “You appear to have been motivated by a misplaced desire to do favours for people, rather than to gain any direct financial benefit. I accept you were not so acting to that end”.

    But the judge said in his other crimes this was not the case and told him in those instances “you were engaged quite clearly in making false insurance claims and car mileage clocking out of pure greed”. But in mitigation, said the judge, Robinson had come from a respectable background, and although separated from his wife, still maintained her and their children. He had pleaded guilty and has been suspended from the RUC since 1997.

    He added Robinson now faced losing his job and with it the esteem and loyalty of his former colleagues, but given the fact he was earning £46,000 a year and had gained only £12,000 though his illegal activities, made his crimes “all the more inexplicable”.

    Prosecuting QC Terence Mooney told the court the charges of conspiracy to pervert public justice, arose out of Robinson using his position as a police inspector, either to interfere before court cases, or when he failed to present a number of pertinent facts to the courts.

    In one instance, he added, a driver clocked at speeding at over 100mph, Robinson contacted the officer in charge of the case and tried to get her to drop the prosecution.

    But, said Mr Mooney, the case did come to court, but Robinson did not present the full facts and even handed in a letter to the magistrate which appeared to suggest the driver had been on “a mission of mercy”.

    The letter was written by Serplus in his office. Serplus, pleaded guilt to aiding and abetting Robinson in perverting the course of public justice. Mr Mooney said there was no evidence to suggest she would have been involved but for Robinson.

    Defence QC Charles Adair, who handed in several medical reports together with a pre-sentence report from the probation services, claimed that they indicated the court was dealing with a “45-year-old broken man”.

    Mr Adair said Robinson first joined the RUC in 1975 and made sergeant in under three years and inspector within another six making him “really a high-flyer in the service”.

    He added that after several postings he was transferred to Strabane “and perhaps the roots of his depression started there”, because he was also targeted by the INLA while serving at the border station and saw colleagues injured and murdered.

    He was then moved on to Omagh RUC Station and the offences began, but they were committed during a time when Robinson sought the help of police psychiatrists in and around 1995, long before he was aware of any investigation into his activities.