EX-ROYAL NAVY POLICE OFFICER SEXUALLY ASSAULTED YOUNG CHILD
A man has admitted to sexually assaulting a young child while he was serving as a Royal Navy police officer.The 29-year-old, now of Blackburn Road, Clayton-Le-Moors, was due to go on trial this week but changed his plea at the last minute.
Joseph Demetriou-Prestage, who had been based at Faslane, was first arrested in 2023 and has been free since.
Some of the details of the case cannot be reported to protect the victim.
Dumbarton Sheriff Court heard the investigation was triggered when the now former officer's phone was seized upon his return from deployment in Bahrain in December 2022.
The court was told that explicit footage of a primary school-aged youngster being sexually assaulted by Demetriou-Prestage was found on his device, captured in June 2022.
The prosecutor stated that the video was in a private photo vault and had been deleted before the investigation.
Demetriou-Prestage was arrested on February 27, 2023, and interviewed by the MoD before the case was passed to Police Scotland.
He didn't appear until March 2024 in Greenock, where he pleaded guilty to sexual assault of a young child.
The charge was amended to change the victim's name and remove references to other allegations under the Sexual Offences (Scotland) Act 2009.
He was charged with possessing and making indecent photos of children between February and December 2022 at a property in Helensburgh, in the UK, and Bahrain.
The Crown accepted his not guilty pleas to those two allegations.
He attended school in Blackburn and was most recently employed as a Royal Navy Police officer at HMNB Clyde from December 2018, but is no longer working for the Navy.
Sheriff John McElroy KC remanded Demetriou-Prestage in custody for reports and deferred sentencing until later this year.
