A married police officer alleged to have misused his position to try to persuade several women to have sex with him has denied behaving inappropriately.

Folkestone PC Stephen Hughes is accused of contacting women in the town after investigating various crimes.

One of those women was Gina Lowe, whose partner ran the Mayfly pub in Hawkinge.

Hughes, of Fairfax Close, Folkestone, met Miss Lowe just before Christmas 2011 while following up a report of a domestic incident in which she was alleged to have thrown water over Mr Ender.

Maidstone Crown Court heard the 32-year-old officer contacted her several times using both his police mobile phone and his personal one.

Text messages included ones of him telling her she was attractive and he wanted to spend an evening in bed with her.

But Hughes told the jury although they exchanged "mutually complimentary" texts, not all were flirtatious and often centred around their interest in football, and Liverpool FC in particular.

He also told the court Miss Lowe had initially invited him for a drink, something which "boosted" his self-esteem, and later inferred she had left Mr Ender.

However, he maintained that although he had told Miss Lowe he wanted to spend the night with her, no meeting was ever arranged.

"There was never an end game," Hughes told the jury. "It made me feel good about myself to have this contact with an attractive lady.

"It was mutual and texts went both ways. I don't think there was an end goal. It was what it was - text communication."

Asked about how being married fitted into his contact with Miss Lowe, Hughes - who suffers from depression - said: "It's something I'm not very proud of.

"When I was having problems this acted as a relief I suppose."

The court heard the pair never met other than the occasion at the Mayfly pub and contact ended less than two weeks later.

"There was mutual agreement that the contact needed to stop before it went too far," he told the jury.

Hughes, who also admitted he had gambled and phoned chat lines to deal with his depression, denies nine charges of misconduct in judicial or public office.

The trial continues.

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