Under the covers work of an NZ cop

Wellington (New Zealand): A woman police officer moonlighting as a prostitute has got off with a caution, New Zealand police said on Thursday.

The unidentified officer, stationed in the country's biggest city Auckland, was discovered last year to have been a prostitute for a short time.

"The officer concerned has been counselled. Under police procedures this amounts to a censure," Deputy Police Commissioner Lyn Provost said in a statement.

The police officer, who was understood to be having financial difficulties, had not sought permission to have a second job.

Such applications are considered on a case-by-case basis.

"This type of secondary employment would never be approved given that the type of work is inappropriate and incompatible with policing," Provost said.

New Zealand made prostitution legal in 2003.

An Auckland spokeswoman for the New Zealand Prostitutes' Collective - a welfare and lobby group for sex workers - told the New Zealand Press Association that a prostitute might earn as much as $500 (New Zealand dollars) on a busy night.

Asked if she had heard of other police officers moonlighting as sex workers, she said, "We have law students that are sex workers, we have doctors that are sex workers. I mean anyone can be a sex worker."