A CORRUPT police officer who was jailed for trying to help a dangerous arsonist escape prosecution could lose his pension, it has been revealed.

A CORRUPT Essex police officer who was jailed for trying to help a dangerous arsonist escape prosecution could lose his pension, it has been revealed.

Essex Police is seeking legal advice on the possibility of taking some or all of the pension due to Bob Sloan, who was put behind bars for two years last Monday.

Sloan, an “old school” police officer who retired from Essex Police in 2008, had tried to help informant Wayne Taylor get off a charge of handling stolen vehicles.

He was found guilty last Monday of acts tending to and intended to pervert the course of justice.

Last night, a spokesman for Essex Police said: “The force will now be liaising with its legal advisers regarding the pension rights of Robert Sloan.”

Essex Police Authority member Paul Bishop said he had raised the issue with the authority’s chief executive, Robin Paddock.

Mr Bishop said: “There are forfeiture rules but it is also a legal process as well. As a member I am asking what the rules are and what the processes are – it is not something I have come across before.

“We act in the public interest and I think this is an issue which the public will be rightly concerned about and that is why we are asking the questions.”

Mr Bishop added that he hoped to learn more at a meeting with Mr Paddock today.

During Sloan’s trial at Southwark Crown Court the jury heard the 52-year-old, of Villa Road, Stanway, Colchester, used Taylor as a “snout’ in the 1990s.

He was then asked to re-establish him as a police informant after fire-bomb attacks on the homes of two senior police officers in Clacton.

Unknown to Sloan, and Essex Police at the time, Taylor was the man behind the January 2006 attacks. The court heard Sloan then developed an inappropriate relationship with Taylor and tried to help him get off a charge of handling stolen vehicles.

He gave information and advice to Taylor – who later pleaded guilty to handling stolen goods – at the time he was facing a separate internal disciplinary inquiry for developing an inappropriate relationship. After he was found guilty, Judge James Wadsworth QC said Sloan was “so arrogant he ignored the rules as he pleased for his own benefit.”

The judge said Sloan was corrupt and used his position as a police officer with a good reputation to aid an important criminal in a bid to help his own case in internal disciplinary matters.

“The damage that you have done to the services of justice and to your own force is quite substantial,” said the judge.

Sentencing Sloan, he told him: “I bear very much in mind your good character and your 28 years of police service.

“You used your time as a police officer and the reputation that you built up in order to create a situation that depended on your good character and the position that you held.

“I’m satisfied that what happened in this case was essentially as a result of your arrogance.”

Taylor was convicted at the Old Bailey in November last year of two counts of arson and was jailed for 18 years.