Sydney Snapchat sex cop spared jail

A SYDNEY police officer has been spared jail after he secretly filmed a colleague while they were having sex and shared it with other officers in an online group called “No Snitches”.

Timothy Michael Patterson changed his clothes in an apparent attempt to avoid being captured on camera following his sentence at Downing Centre Local Court on Friday.

The 28-year-old senior constable filmed a consensual encounter with an off-duty officer at a Sydney hotel in 2017 without her permission.

Two of his videos were shared with eight other officers in a Snapchat group called “No Snitches”.

Patterson claimed the woman did consent to filming but didn’t know he was posting the videos online — which he did to brag to his mates.

“As juvenile as it was (I did it to) boast to the guys I was having sex and they weren’t,” he told the court at an earlier hearing.

But magistrate Clare Farnan found him guilty of filming the woman in a private act without her consent and using a carriage service to menace, harass or offend.

On Friday, she put Patterson on a two-year good behaviour bond and jailed him for nine months for the offences she previously described as “demeaning” and “appalling”.

However, the magistrate said he would serve his sentence in the community by way of an intensive corrections order.

“These offences are offences which in my view the community needs to recognise as being extremely harmful to both the community and to the victim generally,” she said.

A NSW Police spokeswoman told AAP Patterson was suspended and his employment under review.