8:26am Sunday 21st October 2007
A 38 YEAR-OLD former police officer convicted of sexually assaulting his teenage au-pair was told that he will escape prison.
Father-of-three Damien McColgan got his 17-year-old Austrian au-pair to dress in school uniform before putting her over his knee and spanking her last October.
The former British Transport Police officer turned train driver denied charges relating to two spanking incidents in the family home in Greenford.
He told the jury at Isleworth Crown Court: "It seemed funny in the context. She didn't appear to have a problem with it. She seemed to take it as part of mucking about".
The jury found him guilty of the first charge and cleared him of the second which, he said, simply did not take place.
He admitted ordering the teenager to write 50 times "I must not keep the children out too long and I must not turn off the mobile phone" when she was late bringing his children home.
Prosecutor Benedict Kelleher told the jury at Isleworth Crown Court: "He has a rather strange attitude to his relationship with his au-pair and goes in for school-style discipline".
McColgan was remanded on bail for reports to be sentenced in November and Judge Richard McGregor-Johnson asked for "particular attention to be paid to background matters which the jury has not heard". Saying he would not send him to prison, the judge commented "It is not at that level of seriousness".
The court heard that he took the petite brunette shopping and helped to buy the school uniform - and then told her she must not wear a g-string with it.
She told the court that after putting the children to bed that evening and when Mrs McColgan had gone to work, he asked her to put the school uniform on.
She said: "I found it odd that he wanted to see me in it but as he had bought it for me, I thought I had better put it on.
"He told me to turn round, then he laid me over his knee and said he would smack me 12 times on my backside.
"I was frightened. He smacked me six times. It was hard and it hurt. He was saying something about my underwear and then it felt as if he wanted to put his hand up my skirt, then he smacked me on the backside six times again.
"He helped me up and then I looked at him and said Are you happy now?' He was grinning as though he had enjoyed what he was doing."
McColgan is due for sentencing at Isleworth Crown Court at the end of November.
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