A Yorkshire police officer has told a jury he is “mortified” to be on trial accused of sexually assaulting a young woman in a pub, saying she consented to him taking a photograph of her cleavage.

Married father-of-four Pc Paul Hinchcliffe, 46, admitted on Thursday that he sent a picture taken down the 18-year-old woman’s top to a colleague during a night out but denied pulling the garment down.

Hinchcliffe, who was 43 at the time, told his trial at Leeds Crown Court that he was drinking beer with a group, including other officers, for around seven and a half hours in the Wetherspoons pub and that everyone was enjoying themselves and “getting drunk and giddy”.

He said the complainant started talking to his group in the bar in Wath upon Dearne in South Yorkshire on October 3 2000 about having a “boob job”, when she pulled her top forward to “show her cleavage”.

Hinchcliffe told the jury he asked if he could send a photograph to his colleague, Pc Ian Dillon, who would be “gutted” to be missing it.

He said he held the woman’s top in the same position she had pulled it to and she seemed content with this as he reached for his phone.

The defendant said he asked her: “Can I show him? Can I send it?” and he added: “She either consented to it or she implied that she was consenting.”

Hinchcliffe said: “This is why I’m mortified it’s come to this.”

He added: “She was laughing and giggling.”

Hinchliffe admitted that, when he returned home drunk, he sent the woman a series of WhatsApp messages, including sexually explicit emojis and one which said: “God, I’d do you.”

He told the court: “I’m mortified. I know there’s a massive age gap.

“I know I said things I shouldn’t have said. I don’t know what made me send them. I know how it looks.

“When I’ve been sober enough to realise what an idiot I have been, I’ve apologised.”

Hinchliffe wiped away tears as he told the jury: “I’m absolutely mortified, I’m disgusted I’m here.

“It’s wholly embarrassing, it’s shameful.

“If I had known there was any issue it wouldn’t have happened. It’s made me feel terrible.

“All I’ve wanted to do from day one is to make things right.”

The defendant, who has been a police officer for 19 years, denied he had a sexual interest in the woman, saying she was young enough to be his daughter.

Hinchcliffe was still emotional as he told the jury his world had “imploded” since his arrest and suspension.

Earlier, Pc Dillon told the court that he received the photograph of a woman’s cleavage from his police training colleague and told Hinchcliffe: “You’re going to get locked up.”

Pc Dillon said Hinchcliffe sent it in a private WhatsApp message and it showed her cleavage and bra and “she had a white substance on her cleavage”.

Hinchcliffe had told the jury he had flicked beer froth at the woman which had landed on her face and chest, but he denied he was trying to make it look like semen.

Pc Dillon told the jury: “My feeling was a combination of being quite angry, because I was with my wife at that point, and a little bit shocked as well.”

He told the jury he had warned the defendant earlier that night after he had received one photo from Hinchcliffe featuring two women with arms in front of them.

He told court he was on a night out with his wife and friends at the time and replied to Hinchcliffe saying it was “a bit gropey” and adding: “I hope you behave yourself.”

Pc Dillon said that when Hinchcliffe replied “they made me”, he replied: “Ah, that old ‘they made me’ bollocks. Enjoy prison, Hinch.”

The officer told the jury: “I felt obliged to make a bit of a challenge to it, in a casual sort of way.

“I didn’t want to come across as too stern with him but I wanted to flag up my concerns.”

Hinchcliffe, of Wath upon Deane, denies one count of sexual assault.

The trial continues on Friday.