Metropolitan Police officer denies 'helping uninsured flirt'
A police officer has denied turning a blind eye to an uninsured Porsche driver after he flirted with her with suggestive texts.
Richard Myerson swapped email addresses and numbers with Pc Saheena Tegally, of London Colney, Hertfordshire, after she pulled him over for an insurance check.
Ms Tegally, 26, told jurors her exchanges with him were just "banter".
The Metropolitan Police officer denies perverting the course of justice at London's Wood Green Crown Court.
'He is minted'
Prosecutors claim Ms Tegally falsely told other officers Mr Myerson had been covered when he was stopped because he had been flirting with her and had asked her out on a date.
She denied the claim, telling her trial the messages the couple swapped were just "banter" and that she never had any intention of meeting him on a date.
The court had previously heard the West Hampstead-based officer sent Mr Myerson a text saying "far too hot to be stuck in uniform", to which he replied "you could sit behind your desk in your underwear".
Cross-examining Ms Tegally, prosecutor David Markham read a text she later sent to a friend, saying she had "seized a Porsche off a 25-year-old, he is minted and has asked to take me out".
'It was flattering'
Mr Markham asked: "He turned your head a little bit, didn't he?"
Ms Tegally replied: "It was flattering, yes it was. But that doesn't for one minute mean I was going to meet up with him."
She said that at the time of the alleged offence in July last year she had just broken off a relationship, during which she had undergone an abortion.
Ms Tegally admitted she was sent via email documents showing he had not been insured but claimed she did not read them closely.
She told the court it was just a mistake on her part and that she had never told her superiors definitively that he had been legally driving, only telling them it "looked like" he was.
She added: "Although I was going through a bad time, I worked hard to become a police officer."
The trial continues.