Gavin Giles (47) was sentenced this morning in the Auckland District Court after pleading guilty to a charge of indecent communication with a person under 16.
He left the police soon after the charges were laid.
Judge David Sharp sentenced Giles to eight months' home detention.
Giles was granted interim name suppression when he first appeared in the Papakura District Court. After he admitted the charge he applied for permanent name suppression.
But Judge Sharp declined that application, meaning the Herald can now publish the full details of his offending.
Giles was working as a constable based at Papakura when he was arrested last year.
He is also well known in rugby circles as a former lock for Counties Manukau and more recently as coach of the Papakura premier team.
Grooming via Instagram - Giles' prolonged offending
The offending began in May 2017 when Giles connected with the girl through social media app Instagram.
He was 46 at the time and the girl was just 13.
Judge Sharp said the girl was "troubled" and had mental health issues including bipolar and borderline personality disorder.
Giles was open about the fact he was a police officer and his Instagram profile had a photograph of him in uniform.
Judge Sharp said Giles established the girl's age in the "initial stage" of the online relationship and "acknowledged she was young".
He told her she was "beautiful" and they chatted every day for the first month.
Then Giles and the girl - who has statutory name suppression because she is the victim of a sexual crime - started to communicate through Snapchat.
Snapchat is an app which allows users to send photos and videos to contacts.
The content can be a maximum of 10 seconds long and is deleted once it has been viewed by the recipient.
They also engaged in video chats.
He told her to send photographs of herself and she complied - providing images of herself in a bra then a bikini.
She later sent photographs of her breasts and buttocks.
In return, Giles sent her "indecent" photos of himself.
He also made explicit comments, said he loved her and that he would assist her to travel to New Zealand to meet him once she turned 18.
The girl was also having indecent communications with a number of other men and when police in Texas started to investigate that - they found out about her relationship with Giles.
They passed the information on to police here and Giles was charged soon after.
Starting point - prison
Judge Sharp set a starting point of an 18 month prison sentence for Giles but gave him a slight discount for his early guilty plea and for the fact he had no previous convictions and "good character".
The end sentence of 12 months was then converted to home detention. Giles was also placed on the Child Sex Offenders' register.
Judge Sharp said he had to "denounce and deter" Giles' offending and show that there were "severe repercussions" for offending like his.
He said the victim was vulnerable - not just because of her age - and Giles' communication with her was "unacceptable".
"It was ongoing and escalating conduct," he said.
"It became more and more pernicious as time went on.
"It was premeditated, involved contemplated behaviour - the behaviour had an aspect of grooming and sexual predator behaviour.
"There was a significant psychological power imbalance in your favour."
Judge Sharp said Giles had "expressed remorse" but suggested that the victim was not accurate in her recollection of their relationship.
A video interview of the victim speaking to police have been provided to the judge and he said while the girl may not have gotten every detail right - the "basic aspect" of his offending was "not in question".
