A POLICEMAN from Watford made fraudulent transactions at his local Tesco store "morning, noon and night" to collect points which he could then turn into air miles.

Shaun Pennicott, 42, a police constable with Hertfordshire Constabulary and a full time federation representative, discovered that coupons to claim extra Clubcard points could be used again and again at the supermarket's self-service tills.

During the policeman's trial, a Tesco operations manager said the company discovered the problem during trials of the machines, but decided it was not economically viable to alter them.

On one occasion, Pennicott went into Tesco Extra, in Lower High Street, and bought a newspaper, taking it to a self-service till to pay.

He then scanned the bar code of a coupon promising an extra 150 loyalty points three times clocking up a total of 450 points.

In the two months between December 2005 and January 2006 he made 154 transactions at the store and on every occasion used the 150 bonus points voucher to repeatedly swipe bonus points which could be converted into BA air miles.

It was only when his Clubcard account was flagged up by the store's computer to be security checked because of the huge number of points being wracked up, that staff were alerted and police were called in.

In January 2006, Pennicott, a married father of two, who had joined Hertfordshire Constabulary in 1992, was arrested at his home in St Francis Close, Oxhey.

At Luton Crown Court on Friday he was found guilty of eight charges of going equipped to cheat.

He was given a community order by Judge Michael Kay and told he must carry out 120 hours unpaid work in the next 12 months. In addition he was fined £800 and ordered to pay prosecution costs of £2,500.

Following conviction his barrister Geoffrey Birch said it looked "very much" as if his client would now be resigning from the police. If not, he said, he would face disciplinary proceedings and be dismissed.

The jury heard how Pennicott was a regular shopper at the store in Watford and had two clubcard accounts, both of which automatically converted loyalty points into BA miles.

In November 2005, four self-service tills were introduced to the branch for customers wanting to scan their own shopping The court heard a problem with the tills had already been discovered regarding shoppers who had vouchers or coupons to claim extra clubcard points.

Tesco operations manager, Kay Clements told the court: "We knew about the situation at the trials stage and we have not changed it, although we have changed a couple of things in the process.

"We have calculated the loss and it is not enough to warrant the investment of putting a reader in every machine."

The jury were told that, following the introduction of the self-service tills, Pennicott quickly discovered the problem himself when struggling to scan an extra points voucher.

He said a supervisor came over to help him and inadvertently showed him how to work the con.

The woman thought she had simply helped a customer, but standing there with his voucher still in his hand which could be used again, PC Pennicott told the jury he realised he had stumbled on a "loophole" and was "amazed" by it.

Passing sentence Judge Michael Kay told Pennicott: "This became an obsession. You were so greedy you would do virtually anything to obtain Clubcard points and turn them into air miles. You regularly travelled abroad and that is what attracted you."