Sentencing began Friday for a former Vancouver police detective who behaved inappropriately with a teen girl and a young woman who were both vulnerable witnesses in pimping and sexual trafficking cases he was meant to protect.

Jim Fisher pleaded guilty to sexual exploitation back in March.

At the sentencing hearing in Surrey, B.C. Friday, the court heard Fisher kissed one of the victims on three occasions, starting when she was 17.

The first incident happened in a Vancouver Police Department office after Fisher had taken her to see a psychiatrist.

At the time, Fisher was a high-ranking officer who was a member of the force's counter-exploitation team, which investigates prostitution and criminal exploitation.

"What we saw is Fisher took advantage of his position of trust," said Sophia Hladik of Vancouver Rape Relief. "Even though these were just kissing offences, in the words of the Crown, they impacted the victims greatly."

In a victim impact statement played on video for the court, the teen victim said that all her life she had learned her value was to be a sex object, "so when Jim Fisher started to make sexual advances, I thought that is the price I have to pay for him helping me."

But when she complained to the VPD about each of the three occasions on which Fisher kissed her, some sessions lasting up to 10 minutes, other officers began investigating the detective.

Months after the complaint, which Fisher didn't know about, he heard a false rumour that was circulating in the department that he'd had sex with the teenage girl.

Fisher called the girl, then 18, before his friend was scheduled to interview her. She had agreed to let VPD officers investigating Fisher record her calls, and the recording was played for the court.

In the record, Fisher could be heard breathing heavily as he told the girl over the phone to tell the officer they'd never had sex. She agreed to not say anything that would get him in trouble. But she also said that when he kissed her, "it didn't seem right that a police officer was making out with me."

“I never, ever meant to hurt you,” Fisher replied. “I thought that it was mutual, and when I did see it wasn't, I stopped. ... I'm sorry.”

In her victim impact statement on Friday, the girl said Fisher's actions caused her to relapse with a drug addiction and drop out of school.

“This was not a single isolated incident. This was not a momentary lapse of judgment. This was a pattern of conduct that went on for months,” said Crown lawyer Amanda Starno. “His moral culpability is extremely high.”

The court also heard from a second victim who said she had thought of Fisher as a father figure before he kissed her.

The woman, now 23, first met Fisher when she was 15.

"We used to joke about him walking me down the aisle one day," she said in her victim impact statement.

She was involved in a stabbing case, but Fisher misled investigating officers about her involvement by providing an outdated phone number and describing her as a witness.

Police ultimately granted her immunity for the crime and she agreed to help with their investigation into Fisher by recording a conversation with him in a coffee shop.

In the recording, the court heard her ask Fisher about the kissing incident.

“I trusted you. Why did you kiss me?” the woman asked. “I looked up to you like a father.”

“I shouldn't have done that. I apologize for that,” Fisher responded.

The kissing, she said in her victim impact statement, transformed her from a happy, social, upbeat girl to someone who was negative and hopeless.

"My life went downhill fast," she said.

Fisher plead guilty breach of trust and sexual exploitation for kissing the teenager and breach of trust for kissing the young woman.

"Because of his position of authority, he thought that he'd be able to get away with it," Hladik said. "And he went to considerable efforts to try and manipulate the victims into co-operating with him so that he could get away with it."

The Crown is asking for an 18 to 20 month jail term for Fisher. The Defence is asking for 90 days to be served intermittently.

The case will be back in court in July.

With a report from CTV Vancouver's Sheila Scott and with files from the Canadian Press