A Met Police officer packed condoms, lubricant and pills for erectile dysfunction before going to meet a girl he thought was 13, a court has heard.

Detective Constable Francois Olwage, 52, is accused of grooming who he believed was a teenage girl he met online.

The counter-terrorism officer was actually speaking to an undercover police officer, who went by the username “Smile Bear”, Winchester Crown Court was told.

After two weeks of explicit sexual conversations in October 2021, Olwage arranged to meet the “girl” in a park in Basingstoke, Hampshire, where she told him she lived.

Before the planned meeting, Olwage wrote in a message: “Because of your age, things can go very wrong for us, I could be breaking the law, lose my job, social services be called.

“I do not want any of that for us so we can’t meet tomorrow for anything sexual so it can only be about us meeting to chat and spending time together.”

Peter Shaw, for the prosecution, told the court that Olwage travelled by train to Basingstoke, where he had rented a flat for the evening.

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He was arrested in McDonald’s by two undercover police officers after agreeing to buy the girl a McFlurry before they met up.

When searched, the officers found two condoms, a bottle of lubricant and a packet of Tadalafil erectile dysfunction tablets in his bag.

There was also a box of Ferrero Rocher chocolates, which Mr Shaw suggested was a present for the girl.

Olwage has since been suspended from the Met Police.

Mr Shaw said that Olwage did not answer questions when interviewed by police but gave a statement saying “he never believed that Smile Bear was a 13-year-old girl” and “assumed at the outset this was a fake profile”.

He claimed he “believed it was an adult female living out a fantasy as a 13-year-old” which he found “of intellectual interest” and decided to “play along” with.

Mr Shaw said the defendant “denied having a sexual interest in children and denied the meeting would involve sexual activity”.

Asked about the specific contents of his bag, Olwage claimed it “tends to always be in there when I travel”.

Giving evidence to the trial, the undercover officer who posed as Smile Bear and only be identified as Max, said he had stated the girl was aged 13 and that Olwage had replied: “Are you OK chatting with me, I could be your dad?”

Olwage, of Stevenage, Hertfordshire, denies four charges relating to child sex offences.

The trial continues.

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