Haunting mugshot of ‘cultured’ and ‘predatory’ former GMP special constable who raped child

This is the mugshot of a Bolton police officer who raped a young girl in his car months after being released from prison.

Stephen Godridge groomed his victim via Snapchat before sexually abusing her. The 31-year-old had been released from prison just months earlier after exploiting two other teenagers in shockingly similar circumstances.

In a hearing at Liverpool Crown Court on Thursday (July 4), prosecutor Trevor Parry-Jones said Godridge was a “sophisticated, predatory paedophile whose intent was to satisfy his penchant for sexual activity with teenage girls”. He told the court Godridge “stalked underage girls via Snapchat” while pretending to be 23 years old. reports the Liverpool Echo.

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The court heard that Godridge, of Southfield Street, Bolton, sent the 14-year-old plaintiff a friend request on the platform before persuading her to send him pictures of herself in her underwear. He then drove from his home in Bolton to Liverpool to pick her up in his car and then took her to Manchester to watch him play football.

After returning to Merseyside in the dark, Godridge took his victim to a car park at Breckside Park in Anfield, where he sexually assaulted and raped her in the back seat while she “told him to stop all the time”. She had taken photographs of the interior of his vehicle on her mobile phone during the journey out of “worry and concern”.

This eventually led to his arrest after automatic number plate recognition technology confirmed he had visited the area. In interview, Godridge claimed he “believed she was not underage” and claimed the teenager told him she was 17 before they had consensual sex.

Godridge was said to have “perfected his method over many years”. In 2019, he was sentenced to 57 months in prison at Preston Crown Court after being found guilty of two counts of sexual activity with a child.

This time, using “exactly the same modus operandi,” he befriended two 15-year-old girls on Snapchat while pretending to be 19 and 22. He then sent them explicit pictures of himself and had sex with them in his car in remote locations.

Reports at the time detailed that Godridge, who was also subject to a sexual abuse protection order banning him from having any contact with girls under the age of 16, had previously served as an auxiliary constable with Greater Manchester Police before being suspended from duty following his arrest in October 2016.

He later resigned from the police force and was released from prison four months before his last crime.

Godridge was found guilty by a jury following a trial of two counts of rape, sexual assault, two counts of assault by penetration and breaching a sexual harm prevention order. He appeared via video link at HMP Liverpool and was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 10 years and 8 months this morning.