A woman police officer has denied trying to cover up for her fiance after he sexually abused children and threatened to commit suicide at a Dartmoor beauty spot.
Sarah Cohen told a jury she had not tried to talk the parents of the 14-year-old abuse victim out of reporting the assault by her partner James Reading.
She also denied trying to prevent Reading being arrested after he went to Meldon Dam on Dartmoor armed with a knife and threatened to harm himself.
Cohen, aged 37, had been in a relationship with Reading for six years and engaged to him for a year at the time of his offences against young cadets in November 2011.
Cohen, from Lifton, who was based at Launceston at the time and has since worked at Crownhill and Bodmin, is on trial at Exeter Crown Court accused of two charges of attempting to pervert the course of justice.
The prosecution say both offences arose from the consequences of an incident at a party at which Reading got drunk and sexually assaulted a 14-year-old girl.
He was interrupted by other children who threw him out of the hut in the middle of the night. He drove Cohen's car to Meldon, crashing it on the way, then rang her in a distressed state.
She was on duty in uniform at Launceston and went to Meldon, which was outside her normal patrol area, with another officer, without informing the police control room.
Other officers became involved because Reading made a 999 call while they were on their way to the dam and the other officer pressed an emergency button on her phone to call for urgent back-up after seeing Reading with a hunting knife.
The allegations of sexual assault were not made until the next day, when the 14-year-old girl texted a man to tell him what happened.
The child showed the texts to Cohen, who called in the girl's father and made him aware of the allegations.
The prosecution allege she went to visit him and his wife later that night and tried to dissuade them for making a formal complaint to the police about Reading's sexual assault on their daughter.
The jury have been told that Reading has subsequently been found guilty of this offence and is currently serving a jail sentence.
Cohen told the court she had been in the police for almost ten years and had been a civilian employee for four more years before that.
She was moved to a desk job during the investigation and has been suspended since being charged with criminal offences in July 2013.
She said he knew Reading from her own time as a 13-year-old but they had lost touch with one another before meeting again as adults.
She said they had been in a relationship for six years and by November 2011 they had been engaged for a year and he was living at her home for about 18 months.
She said:"It was a very difficult relationship. He was a very intense individual and difficult to deal with. It was hard work trying to do so and I did not like his drinking. I was always concerned about getting calls saying to pick him up.
"It is hard to explain why I stayed with him to someone who has not been in that position. I felt trapped and I felt responsible for him. Looking back, I realise I was manipulated by him.
"I would not say I loved him by that time. I had but by then the relationship was just too difficult."
She said she had driven to Meldon with colleague Pc Nicola Lawson after receiving a call from Reading in the early hours of the morning in which he was threatening to harm himself.
She did not inform her control room because she thought that her personal connection offered the best chance of resolving the tense situation without putting anyone, including Reading at risk.
She said:"I went to Meldon to try to sort it out before it escalated. I did not notify comms. We don't have to notify them every time we leave the station.
"I thought I would just whizz up there and back in no time at all. If I told the control room I would have been stopped from attending and it would have escalated. I did not think either of us were in any danger."
She said she had not made the decision to detain Reading under the Mental Health Act rather than arrest him for having a knife or possible drink driving. She said that was done by her colleague Pc Lawson.
At the time she knew nothing of the events at the hut and would have banned the sleepover party of she had learned about it.
Cohen denied trying to influence the parents of the child when she went to see them late the next evening. She said they had already made up their mind to report the assault and she did no more than explain how the police investigation would proceed.
In earlier police interviews she said that by the time she visited their home in North Devon she knew they had spoken to Detective Superintendent Michelle Slevin, who is a family friend.
The father had also texted her saying they had decided to report to assault on their daughter, so her visit was not intended to stop them doing so or protect Reading.
