Police officer charged with Halifax child sex offences

ALL 16, including a police officer accused of sexual assaults against children, have appeared before Bradford Magistrates' Court.

The police officer Amjad Ditta faces a single charge of sexual touching.

Ditta was attached to West Yorkshire Police's Protective Services Operations.

He was a serving officer at the time of the alleged offence reported.

The police officer has been suspended from duty, the police department has previously said.

He and the other accused were given bail and scheduled to appear before Bradford Crown Court on January 20.

The accused have been charged with rape and supplying drugs, related to offences against three teenage girls in Halifax during the three years to 2009.

The victims were aged between 13 and 16 at the time.

District Judge Charlotte Holland said that the alleged offences were "too serious" to be dealt with by the magistrates' court and that it was necessary for them to be heard at crown court instead.

The list of Halifax residents who are accused in the case include: Vaqaas Abbas, 30, Nadeem Adalat, 34, Sajid Adalat, 43, Waseem Adalat, 33, Amjad Ditta, 35, Christopher Eastwood, 45, Mahtab Islam, 46, Mohammed Rizwan Iqbal, 34, Ishtiaq Latif, 32, Asad Mahmood, 33, Khalifa Mughal, 36, Younis Mohammed, 34, Nadeem Nassir, 39, Shahzad Nowaz, 40, Shazad Nazir, 44, Sohail Zafar, 36.