One of his victims told the opening day of the sentencing hearing that her attacker would “frequently bring up” their role as a police officer as a way to control her
A sexual predator who worked as a volunteer Met Police officer has today been described as a monster by his victims.
James Bubb, 28, who now identifies as a woman named Gwyn Samuels, sat silently in court as his two victims gave a blistering account of how he has harmed them. Aylesbury Crown Court heard he groomed one of them online before sexually assaulting her when she was aged just 12.
He was found guilty of raping and sexually assaulting a child after a trial last summer. The defendant was also found guilty of raping a woman he met online while posing as a 16-year-old girl.
In her impact statement, the first victim, who cannot be named for legal reasons, branded Samuels a “highly manipulative, narcissistic, grandiose and extremely dangerous individual” who “groomed” her when she was just 12.
She pointed her damning comments towards Samuels, who sat quietly in the dock. In a powerful voice that sometimes broke, she told him: “When the Metropolitan Police service hired you as a special constable, you swore under oath to protect the public and to give everything you had to fulfil your duties in safeguarding the most vulnerable of people.
“Yet, before you headed to the police station, and put on your uniform, you would make sure to get your fill of perversion, attempts at power, sickness and relentless abuse. I remember you telling me that you had to make a mental separation between who you were at home and who you were when you put on your uniform.
“I thought you were honourable for this. I now realise what you were trying to tell me. The same man that served the public, served nothing but evil behind closed doors.”
Jurors at Samuels’ trial heard the officer sexually assaulted the girl in public shortly before her 13th birthday and was forced to pull his trousers up after a dog walker went past him. Jurors were told Samuels was violent towards the girl when he raped and sexually abused her in her early teens – with the victim telling police he choked and punched her.
Throughout the trial the defendant was referred to by his biological sex, but during Friday’s sentencing hearing the judge said that since they have transitioned, they should be known by their new identity Gwyn Samuels.
The first victim also also told the court: “I vividly remember being 12, already traumatised, already feeling that there was no real way out. No child should ever be made to feel that way, let alone by a police officer, an adult, a trusted person.” She added: ” I would not have complex PTSD if James had chosen to be anything but a prolific abuser.”
She said the defendant would “frequently bring up” their role as a police officer as a way to control her and “why he had the right to induce fear over me and to overstep my boundaries”. The woman, who is now aged 20, said: “I can barely trust anybody any more”. She added: “I am determined to keep fighting and feel I have support now”.
She now suffers from complex PTSD and has been unable to work. She went to college but was not able to concentrate. Even after Samuels was arrested, the woman described herself as feeling “trauma-bonded to James”.
She even slept in one of his blue hooded tops for two weeks after his arrest. The woman said she initially found herself making excuses for Samuel’s behaviour, but now feels “it was never love, only ill intentions”.
The defendant was found guilty of one count of raping a child under 13, one count of sexual activity with a child, one count of assault of a child under 13 by penetration, and one count of assault by penetration.
He was found not guilty of one count of rape and one count of sexual activity with a child in relation to that complainant, and found guilty of one count of rape against another complainant. All of the offences took place between January 1, 2018 and April 2, 2024.
The court heard Samuels met their first victim on chat website Omegle in 2018, before meeting in person for the first time at a Christian festival a few months later. The court also heard the officer raped his second victim, a woman he met when she had just turned 18, while he was in an on-off relationship with her between January 2018 and February 2023.
Speaking from behind a curtain, the second victim told the court that Samuels took advantage of a “vulnerable 18 year-old”. She became pregnant, but lost the baby, telling the court: “I was glad that I miscarried so that this monster would not have any power over me or my child.”
Samuels told her that she was “unlovable and no-one would want me”, the woman recalled. She added there were times when she tried to leave but the defendant would take the key away or drag her back if she wanted to go out, leaving her feeling in the end that it was better to stay.
Samuels also threatened her with 999 calls and being sectioned, the woman said. Samuels of Chesham, Buckinghamshire, is to be sentenced at the same court next Friday.
