An ex-police officer jailed for having sexual relations with a teenage woman while serving in the Durham force in the 1990s has successfully applied to have a restraining order lifted.

The five-year order prohibited Daryl William Edmunds from contacting, approaching or making reference on social media to the woman, who is now in her 40s.

It was put in place when the defendant was sentenced for misconduct in public office, at Durham Crown Court, last October, a charge he previously admitted.

Edmunds was said to have had sexual relations with the then teenage woman in his force car, while both on and off-duty, in the 90s.

The Northern Echo: Ex police officer Daryl Edmunds was jailed at Durham Crown Court in October

The court heard that she informed her parents what had taken place and her mother told her it was “wrong”, ringing the police station where Edmunds was based to speak to the defendant, asking him to stop seeing her daughter.

He apologised and agreed it would not continue.

His conduct was brought to police attention in 2021 after the complainant saw messages to the defendant, on Facebook, and made contact with him, informing him she was thinking of reporting his actions, almost 25 years earlier, to police.

She did so, after some prevarication, and Edmunds was arrested and twice interviewed under caution, declining to answer questions, before admitting his guilt in court in September last year, a few weeks before the sentencing hearing.

In her victim statement read to the sentencing hearing, the woman said she felt the defendant had groomed her with flattery and taken advantage of her naivety at a time when she was a, “vulnerable teenager”.

Edmunds, now 53, and living in Addlestone, Surrey, who is of otherwise good previous character, was said to have left the Durham force in 2014, having since worked with local councils in the London area helping them to deal with marginalised communities, among other things.

Passing sentence, in October, Judge Jo Kidd said Edmunds should have realised at the time of his offending the vulnerability of the victim and she described him having acted in a, “predatory and exploitative” manner.

The Northern Echo:

The defendant, who has completed his sentence, was back before the court yesterday (Tuesday April 23) after applying to have the restraining order revoked with still four-and-a-half years outstanding.

Judge Kidd said she had read the defendant’s application in which he highlights the potential impact of it remaining in place on his future employment prospects.

Ian West, for the Crown, said the legal test for a restraining order is that it is intended to protect the victim from harassment.

Having asked that the complainant be notified of the application, for her views, Judge Kidd said: “There’s no suggestion from her to suggest he (the defendant) has any knowledge of her address.”

Mr West said: “He now lives in Surrey and she is in the North East of England.

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“I can’t put before you any evidence to suggest that Mr Edmunds will try to contact her.”

Judge Kidd said, therefore: “It seems to me, given the background of the case, the lapse of time, and the circumstances, with no pattern of him trying to seek her out, that I can revoke the restraining order.”

But the judge said the issue could be re-examined if the complainant does come forward with any strong views about the revocation of the order.