A NORTH-EAST police officer must wait until next month to learn if he is to be charged over a rape allegation.

The officer, a sergeant in the Northumbria force, was arrested by police investigating claims that a woman was raped on Tyneside.

He was questioned at Newcastle's Market Street police station by detectives looking into the woman's allegation that she was raped following a night out in the city last month.

The sergeant, who works elsewhere in the force area, has not been named, but he is believed to be married and in his thirties.

A Northumbria Police spokesman said the officer has been suspended and bailed pending further inquiries.

He is to return to answer bail in January.

The spokesman said: "I can confirm that an officer was arrested on November 14, following an allegation of rape sometime in the previous week."

Northumbria Police's complaints and discipline department is overseeing the investigation.