Residents say they want a disgraced Staffordshire police officer caught with child abuse images out of their neighbourhood after he was released early from prison

Lee Tatton, who appeared in fly-on-the-wall documentary series Cops UK: Bodycam Squad has served his six-month sentence and is now back in his community.

He was sent down after also encouraging someone he thought was a 13-year-old boy to perform a sex act.

Now a petition set up by people living in his street calling for the 54-year-old to be forced to move out has been signed by 150 people.

One resident said: “It’s just horrible and very unsettling. We live in a nice area but this is awful.

“There are lots of families with at least 25 children in this street. The police didn’t even tell us he had been released.

“The house also overlooks a children’s park and we are in walking distance from a primary school. I want him moved out of our street. Some people around here won’t have a clue that he’s even out of prison and people need to know.

“I know he’s got to live somewhere, but not where there are lots of children.”

Another said: “Our street was a lovely place to live with friends and neighbours all around us, but this has shocked us to the core.

“Lee was a friend and neighbour and someone who was in a position of respect within the community, someone we trusted and looked up to as a police officer.

“I really feel let down by the police for allowing him to live here as though nothing has ever happened. I feel like a prisoner in my own home, always looking over my shoulder. It’s not comfortable anymore and it’s not right.

“I cannot let my son have the freedom and independence that he deserves playing out with his friends or visiting the park by our house any more. The rear of Lee Tatton’s house overlooks the park.

“Something needs to be done.”

Another resident in his Stoke on Trent neighbourhood added: “I used to love living on this estate and we’re a very close-knit community, so to find out we have a convicted paedophile living among us has shocked us all completely.

“We have a young child and now even when lockdown is lifted we are still going to feel very restricted as we are too anxious to let the children play in the street like they used to knowing we have a convicted paedophile in close proximity.

“Even a trip to the park for the children will be worrying knowing the back of his property overlooks the park where the children liked to play.

“I cannot believe that someone who our children are brought up to trust has abused his position of authority as a police officer and is then released less than three months back into the community we live in.”

Staffordshire Police sacked Tatton last September.

Lee Tatton, 54, from Trentham, Stoke-on-Trent, was jailed for six months yesterday (Monday 2 November) following his conviction at Birmingham Crown Court on 1 September.

He was convicted of attempting to engage in sexual communication with a child and four counts of making an indecent photograph/pseudo-photograph of a child.

A Staffordshire police officer who recently admitted several child sex offences was once the star of a TV show, it has been revealed.

PC Lee Tatton was once followed by camera crews for fly-on-the-wall documentary Cops UK: Bodycam Squad in his role as a response officer.

But this week, the 54-year-old appeared in the dock to admit attempting to engage in sexual communication with a child and four counts of making an indecent photograph/pseudo-photograph of a child.

Stoke Sentinel reported that production company Raw Cut spent several weeks shadowing PC Tatton and his fellow officers on a range of incidents including rescuing people from a flat fire and breaking up a brawl outside the Market Tavern pub in the city centre.

While arresting one of the men involved in the fight, PC Tatton, who worked in Hanley, ended up being accidentally PAVA sprayed – which is similar to being pepper sprayed – by a colleague.

It was hoped the programme – on UKTV’s Really channel – would give the public an insight into the work of the force.

Speaking at the time the show was premiered, PC Tatton told The Sentinel: “It was put to our shift about the camera crews coming out with us and I was happy to volunteer.

“After a while it became second nature explaining to them what we were dealing with.

“I hope it will give people an insight into what we do and the things we have to deal with at 4am and 5am when most people are tucked up in bed.”

A trawl of The Sentinel’s archives also shows PC Tatton was more than happy to promote the work of the force, including dismantling a cannabis factory in Crystal Street, Cobridge, in 2008.

A later role would see him move to the Northern Resolution Centre – set up to deal with minor crime.

It was while working there in December last year that he was arrested following an investigation by the force’s Operation Safenet team, a dedicated unit tasked with looking into online child abuse to protect vulnerable young people from twisted perverts like Tatton.

Tatton remains on suspension subject to an internal force hearing and will be sentenced on November 2

September 2020

Staffordshire police officer made indecent images of children

A serving Staffordshire police officer made indecent photographs of children and attempted to have a sexual communication with an underage child, a court has heard.

PC Lee Tatton has been convicted of attempting to engage in sexual communication with a child and four counts of making an indecent photograph/pseudo-photograph of a child.

PC Tatton, 54, who was based in the force’s northern resolution centre, in Stoke, pleaded guilty to the offences when at the hearing held at Birmingham Crown Court on Tuesday, September 1.

Tatton had been arrested on December 10, 2019 by the force’s Operation Safenet team and was immediately suspended from duty.

He remains suspended from his role with Staffordshire police and will face internal disciplinary proceedings.

Tatton will be sentenced at Birmingham Crown Court on November 2.