Police officer at centre of tabloid sex scandal

Sarah Pulman, a police officer serving with Chippenham police, appeared in a national tabloid newspaper this week after Craig Higham claimed they had a four-month affair while he was behind bars in HMP Horfield, Bristol, for armed robbery.

In the article, which appeared in Sunday's edition of the News of the World, Mr Higham is described as a former heroin addict serving six years for a holding up an off-licence with a fake gun.

He is quoted as saying: "I was the luckiest con in the whole jail."

He claimed to the News Of The World that Mrs Pulman, of Emerson Green, Bristol, had flirted with him while she was a prison warden and said they had ended up getting raunchy while alone in his cell.

He said they spent time together in the prison and had a steamy relationship before the affair was exposed and Mrs Pulman resigned.

A Wiltshire Police spokesman confirmed Mrs Pulman had applied to Wiltshire Constabulary after she resigned from the prison service.

Mr Higham claimed his lover kept the relationship going even after her job ended with the prison service by sending him love letters and pictures of herself in her underwear.

He claimed he finished the affair last April, just before he left prison, because he wanted to give a relationship with a former girlfriend, the mother of his child, another go.

A spokesman for Wiltshire Police confirmed Mrs Pulman is serving in the north and west Wiltshire police division.

She said: "The force has reviewed her application to the Wiltshire Constabulary.

"No issues have arisen in relation to her application and subsequent employment with us."

The spokesman said Mrs Pulman had resigned from the prison service before she joined Wiltshire Constabulary and her application was all in order.

She said: "There was never a formal investigation by the prison service so what happened with the prison service is between her and them. This brings the matter to a close."