Wayne Errol West: Pedo cop sentenced after filming girl in shower

A policeman who filmed an 11-year-old girl in the shower has been sentenced in Wollongong Local Court. Her mother told the court her daughter had lost her ‘bubbly’ personality after the incident.

A former Nowra police officer who filmed a young girl in the shower has been locked up for 18 months after being sentenced in Wollongong Local Court on Monday.

Wayne Errol West, 48, was arrested in September last year after he was caught filming the 11-year-old in the shower by her mother in the family’s own home.

West, who has daughters of his own, was arrested and charged with two counts of filming a person in a private act without consent to obtain sexual arousal (aggravated) and resigned from NSW Police the very next day.

After West’s electronic devices were seized by police, he was also charged with possessing child abuse material.

Wayne Errol West (pictured in 2012) was a police officer at the time of the offence. Picture: NSW Police

The victim’s mother read an impact statement prior to Magistrate Robert Walker handing down his verdict on Monday.

“It feels like the clock has stopped for the last eight months,” she said.

“I have told my daughters on occasion [home] is a safe place, but sadly that was not the case.”

The mother said she had noticed her daughter lose her “bubbly” personality.

She also told the court that she felt “guilt, anger, mistrust, betrayed and confusion”, however, as a Christian woman, she said she has prayed for West.

“I pray he will seek counsel and forgiveness in his own heart,” she said.

West’s solicitor Graeme Morrison sought for a community corrections order of up to three years, arguing “he’s not going to be welcomed [to prison] with open arms given the offence and him being an acting police officer at the time”.

Wayne Errol West learnt his fate on Monday. Picture: Dylan Arvela

Magistrate Walker dismissed the solicitor’s plea, commenting that matters of this nature were “more prevalent in court these days”.

The magistrate also berated West’s comments to police at the time of his arrest that his act “didn’t harm anyone” because it was intended for his viewing only.

“A serving police officer should have known better,” he said.

West has a non-parole period of nine months in place and there is a AVO protecting the victim from him contacting or going anywhere near her.