A South Bend police officer is accused of having an inappropriate relationship with a 16-year-old girl.

On Tuesday, St. Joseph County prosecutors filed charges against Timothy Barber, which include child seduction, public indecency and public nudity. Police arrested Barber in Elkhart.

The accusations against Timothy P. Barber first came to light on Oct. 5, said investigators.

Court documents say Barber “had contact with the child and used or exerted the law enforcement officer’s professional relationship with the child to engage with the child in sexual intercourse.” Two sexual encounters happened, one in August and another in September.

The girl’s parents learned about the sexual encounters after seeing text messages on their daughter’s phone and asking her about them.

The girl told Mishawaka detectives that Barber came to her in his police uniform while she was working. In August, he drover to a secluded location for a sexual encounter while he was wearing his uniform.

In September the girl also told detectives that Barber “exposed his genitals” to her while she was working outside in the drive-thru at the fast-food restaurant where she works, according to documents.

The girl told detectives that Barber knew her age and that “he looked it up ‘in the books’ and discovered that there was nothing wrong with him having sex with a 16-year-old,” documents say.

Another detective used the police car’s GPS to determine that it had twice been in “secluded” areas, and later those same times at the girl’s family home twice.

The girl said that “she felt like Barber was ‘obsessed’ with her by constantly coming into her workplace to see her while he was in full police uniform.

The girl later disclosed that she felt she had to have sexual intercourse with Barber and felt intimidated by Barber because he was a ‘cop’,” the court documents say.