A POLICE officer who downloaded vile sexual cartoons of children has been dismissed from the force.

PC Lucas Beach, 32, of Park Drive, Wickford, was a serving officer with the Metropolitan Police based in Havering.

He admitted possessing prohibited images of children, indecent images of children and extreme animal pornography at Basildon Magistrates’ Court earlier this year.

The court heard many of the cartoon images would be in the most serious category A if they involved real children because of the type of acts portrayed.

The category C images showed a girl, aged between 12 and 14 .

Beach was arrested following a police raid at his home carried out by Essex Police.

A search warrant was carried out at his address on October 26 last year.

Officers found a computer tower which had 33 images on it of the same girl.

There were also 2,816 prohibited images that were cartoons or CGI images.

There were also 73 videos portraying bestiality.

On July 27, he was sentenced at Basildon Crown Court.

He was made subject to a three-year community order which included him having to a month-long rehabilitation activity requirement.

He must also participate in an internet sex offenders programme and he was handed a Sexual Offences Prevention Order for five years.

Beach, who was also found with indecent photographs of a young girl in a bikini, answered an allegation at a special case hearing.

The allegation stated that his conduct amounted to a breach of the Metropolitan Police’s Standards of professional behaviour in respect of ‘discreditable conduct’.

The chair of the hearing found the allegation proven and the officer was dismissed without notice on Friday, December 1.

The Stop it Now! campaign, run by the Lucy Faithfull Foundation, is aimed at child sexual abuse prevention and operates a helpline.

For more information on how Stop it Now! helps people address their online behaviour, please visit the website stopitnow.org.uk or call the confidential Stop it Now! Helpline on 0808 1000 900.