A former decorated detective who let a woman he was attracted to handle his gun at a police station has cried in court, saying "I have disgraced myself".
Mark Garner, 50, wept at Sydney's District Court on Friday as he recounted his downward career spiral from the 1990s when he received numerous courage and bravery awards to after 2007 when he was drinking up to four bottles of wine a day.
"On rest days I would wake up in my pyjamas and two to three days later I would still be in pyjamas," he said.
"I just wasn't coping with life in general."
Garner has pleaded guilty to two counts of misconduct in office.
Giving evidence at his sentence hearing, Garner said he had met a woman at Kingscliff station in the NSW far north, who was either a victim or witness in an investigation.
He and the woman, who cannot be named, became friends.
"I became attracted to her," he told the court.
In September 2011, he let her handle his Glock pistol at the station.
He also admitted to inappropriately accessing police files in a bid to retrieve a laptop which contained photos of the pair in an intimate session.
He said he had been diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder in 2012, after years of investigating crimes, including those of a man who had sexually assaulted children over 20 years.
Garner, who now works as a night manager at a club, said he had disgraced himself and his family.
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