A FORMER Essex Police officer has been jailed for a total of eight months for dishonesty - including making a false £8,700 insurance claim.Marvin Rothman, 39, claimed his bag was stolen at an airport in the Dominican Republic while on holiday with his girlfriend on June 12, 2001.

A FORMER Essex Police officer has been jailed for a total of eight months for dishonesty - including making a false £8,700 insurance claim.

Marvin Rothman, 39, claimed his bag was stolen at an airport in the Dominican Republic while on holiday with his girlfriend on June 12, 2001.

The former officer told insurance workers the bag contained a personal stereo, a £499 digital camera, $707 and a £7,582 ring - with which he claimed he proposed to his girlfriend on the flight.

When the insurance company became suspicious, police investigated.

Rothman, of Boscawen Gardens, Braintree, admitted making the false insurance claim and other dishonesty charges including spending £279.33 on a Barclaycard between May 26 and August 31, 2001, after reporting it lost.

He also pleaded guilty to making off without paying at a petrol station in Toddington on the M1 and spending £1,550 on a MBNA Europe Bank card that he claimed he had not even received.

At Ipswich Crown Court yesterday, Mr Recorder Michael Pooles QC sentenced Rothman to a total of eight months in prison, four to be suspended.

He told Rothman, who was formerly selected for the US Olympic swimming team in 1980, he had broken the relationship of trust between a police officer and society.

“Frauds and attempted frauds are serious offences difficult to discover and they involve as in this case detailed and planned dishonesty,” he said.

“You had to maintain consistent dishonesty in the respect of the insurance claim for some months. You continued to live that lie towards your own wife.”

The court heard the couple travelled to the Dominican Republic for a holiday.

Rothman proposed on the flight to his girlfriend Nicola Parker, who is now his wife on the PA system, with a ring he bought for £750, the court heard.

When the ring did not fit, Rothman, who has worked for Essex Police since 1986, put it in his camera bag, which he later claimed was stolen on arrival at the airport.

Jonathan Rees, prosecuting, said on July 4, 2001, Rothman signed a claim form for £8,703.90 for a Canon digital camera, a personal stereo, $707 and a ring which he said was bought in 1971 for £7,582.

Mr Rees said photographic evidence showed the camera was used on holiday in the Dominican Republic. Rothman's other offences of dishonesty came to light after mobile phone records showed he was in the area at the time his credit cards were used. Items bought on the cards were also discovered at his home, the court heard.

Simon Russell-Flint, defending, said his client was of previous “impeccable” character.

Mr Russell-Flint said his client was suffering from depression and had little or no control over the acts of dishonesty he suddenly found himself doing.

At a separate court hearing, Mr Rothman's wife Nicola, 26, also a police officer, was cleared of one offence of attempting to procure the execution of a valuable security by deception by making a false insurance claim by a jury after a trial at Ipswich Crown Court.

Speaking after the case, Det Chief Inps Tony Guinan-Browne , of Essex Police, said: “The situation in relation to Nicola Rothman is that she is still suspended from police duty while legal advice is sought in relation to police misconduct matters.

“Once such advice has been received, her situation will be reviewed.”