A DEVON and Cornwall police officer from Lifton will appear before a gross misconduct hearing next month — the first by the force to be held in public.

Policewoman Sarah Cohen was cleared at Exeter Crown Court of covering up for her paedophile boyfriend, after a jury decided she had not put her private emotions before her duty.

She was found not guilty of attempting to pervert the course of justice after a three week trial earlier this year.

She had been accused of trying to stop a victim’s parents from reporting an assault by James Reading, her boyfriend, who was later jailed for sexual assault.

PC Cohen had been on duty at Launceston police station when Reading rang her in the early hours of one morning to say he was at Meldon Dam near Okehampton and was contemplating suicide.

She raced to the scene to calm him down without telling her control room but ended up using incapacitant spray to subdue him and he was held under the Mental Health Act and not arrested.

Within hours she discovered that Reading had gone to the dam after sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl at an unofficial sleepover party after plying her with alcohol.

Cohen, 37, had been in a relationship with Reading for six years and engaged to him for a year when the assault took place in November 2011.

Cohen has been suspended from the Devon and Cornwall force since she was charged with the criminal offences in 2013.

But despite being cleared by the jury in February 2015, she has remained suspended and at the end of next month will face the gross misconduct hearing.

The force has confirmed this will be the first public hearing under new legislation introduced in May which Home Secretary Theresa May brought in to made disciplinary hearings against police officers more visible.

It is due to be held in the last week of September.