A POLICE officer accused of misusing his force’s helicopter when it was used to film people sunbathing naked and having sex was honoured for helping save the lives of two boys who were attacked in a “notorious” incident, a jury has heard.

Matthew Lucas was an air observer on the South Yorkshire Police helicopter when the boys were attacked by two other boys and left for dead in Edlington, near Doncaster, in 2009, Sheffield Crown Court was told.

Lucas, 42, is on trial with another officer - Lee Walls, 47 - and two pilots, Matthew Loosemore, 45, and Malcolm Reeves, 64, who is from Farfield Avenue, Knaresborough.

The jury was told by Mark Sorsby - a retired police sergeant who later became Lucas’s supervisor - that the officer received a commendation from the chief constable for being “one of the team that saved the lives of those children”.

The court has been told that recordings were made from the helicopter on four occasions between 2007 and 2012 - two of people sunbathing naked, one of a couple of naturists and one of a couple having sex in their back garden.

Another officer, Adrian Pogmore, 51, of Rotherham, has admitted misconduct in a public office but Lucas, Walls, Loosemore and Reeves deny the same charge. The jury of six men and six women has heard how the footage at the centre of the trial was found among Pogmore’s property at a police station and Pogmore was the only defendant present during all four incidents. One recording, played to the jury, showed a couple who were friends of Pogmore having sex on their patio in a range of positions for around eight minutes.

The trial continues.