NSW Police officer Alex Cox found not guilty of filming sex, showing mates

A NSW Police officer has been acquitted of allegations he recorded himself and a woman having sex in “doggie-style” while she wore a collar and leash.

Alex Cox was found not guilty of intentionally recording an intimate image without consent and two counts of intentionally distributing the image without consent. Picture: Ashleigh Tullis

A NSW Police officer has been acquitted of allegations he recorded himself and a woman having sex in “doggie-style” while she wore a collar and leash.

He was further found not guilty of showing the video to two of his police officer mates.

Alexander James Cox, 29, pleaded not guilty to intentionally recording an intimate image without consent and two counts of intentionally distributing the image without consent.

Cox – who works as a constable at St George Police Station in Kogarah but has been suspended with pay – successfully defended the allegations during a two-day hearing in Sutherland Local Court this week.

The Crown alleged Cox intentionally recorded himself having sexual intercourse with a naked woman in “doggie-style” position wearing a collar and leash, without her knowledge and that she did not consent to the recording being made.

Alex Cox was found not guilty of all counts.

It was further alleged Cox showed the recording or a photo to three NSW Police officers.

Magistrate Holly Kemp handed down her sentence on Thursday where she found, based on the evidence of the two police officers Constable Zachary Barrett and Detective Sam Kirk, that the woman in the sexual video “was not [the complainant] and could not be her” because neither saw a tattoo on the woman in the video. The court heard the complainant had a distinctive tattoo that “was unmissable”.

“It is utterly implausible and unsustainable that the tattoo had been there and he might have missed it,” she said in relation to both officers.

Ms Kemp said Cox’s utterance that the two people in the video was himself and the complainant was a joke, albeit “inappropriate”, and was not enough evidence to prove the charge given the lack of evidence about seeing the tattoo.

She accepted the remark was not an “admission” but was rather an utterance that was said in a “jokey, throw away” social interaction.

However she noted it was “utterly in poor taste, juvenile, grubby and most demeaning” to the woman.

Alex Cox (right) with his lawyer Paul McGirr outside Sutherland Local Court. Picture: Ashleigh Tullis

Ms Kemp also noted there was the “possibility”, based on the evidence of Detective Kirk, that he was shown the same video during a social trip away and then again a year later.

She said there was no way the woman in the video was the complainant because they had not started their sexual relationship.

Ms Kemp said there were major “failings and oversights” in the prosecution case and the police investigation.

On Wednesday, Ms Kemp found Cox not guilty of the third charge of intentionally distributing an image without consent and it was withdrawn.

On Tuesday, the complainant told the court she was in a sexual relationship with Cox and recalled on one occasion having sex at Cox’s Engadine apartment where she brought a “collar and leash”.

Ms Kemp found the complainant was credible and noted that she gave evidence that she did not believe Cox had taken a secret recording of her because their relationship was built on “trust”.

She further noted the complainant would have been understandably upset having heard a rumour that she had been recorded.