James Boyle: Ex-cop jailed for rape defense attorney | British News

A former police officer-turned-criminal defense attorney was jailed for the rape and indecent assault on an underage girl more than 30 years ago.

James Boyle, now 69, said of his teenage victim: “I know this is wrong but I just can’t help it.”

Boyle was a Cambridgeshire Constabulary officer when he abused the girl between 1986 and 1991.

He made her suffer from nightmares and “images and memories invaded her dreams,” the court heard.

Boyle was practicing law when he was arrested after a complaint was made to the police in 2018, Cambridge Crown Court heard.

Judge Philip Gray sentenced him to 16 years in prison, saying Boyle “lived a lie” because none of his professional accomplishments would have been recognized had he not “evaded responsibility for such a serious offense”.

He denied two counts of rape – one when the victim was under 16 – and one count of indecent assault and forced her to testify in a trial she described as “extremely distressing and harrowing”.

The victim was cross-examined for three days “at your direction,” Judge Gray told Boyle.

“You showed her no mercy then, just as you gave her to your mercy as a child,” he said.

The judge also commended the victim’s “courage and perseverance” in testifying, telling the court that she deserved “tremendous credit.”

Boyle’s attorney Stephen Kamlish KC said he was “broken” by his imprisonment.

He suffers from health conditions including diabetes, high blood pressure and gout, and has lost “significantly” weight since his incarceration.

As a former police officer convicted of sex offenses, Boyle’s sentence would be a “hard sentence to serve,” the judge conceded.

But he added: “You brought it about.”

Boyle, of Sunbury Place, Edinburgh, has also been sentenced to pay £4,500 in penalties and must put himself on the sex offenders’ register.

He is the latest in a line of police officers convicted of serious crimes.

Former Met Police Officer Adam Provan was found guilty Tuesday of multiple rapes of a female co-worker and assault of a 16-year-old girl.

More than a dozen police officers have been convicted of serious crimes since the killing of Sarah Everard – who died in March 2021 at the hands of Acting Officer Wayne Couzens – most committing sex crimes against women.

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