Clacton man caught with thousands of child abuse images faces lifetime police monitoring
74-year-old had photographed children walking to school past his home
A Clacton man who possessed what police believe could be millions of indecent images of children will be under police supervision for the rest of his life.
Essex Police said officers found more than 14,000 indecent images of children, prohibited material and extreme pornography on devices seized from 74-year-old Ian Moore, of Clarendon Park.
Moore was sentenced to 20 months in prison, suspended for two years, at Colchester Magistrates' Court on 16th September.
The force's Police Online Investigation Team received intelligence in April 2024 that an online account linked to Moore, then 71, may have uploaded indecent images of children to the internet.
Officers carried out a warrant at his address and seized more than a dozen devices.
Five external hard drives and a laptop were found to contain illegal images.
Police said their assessment revealed more than 6,000,000 image and video files across the devices.
A cross-section of the seized files was found to contain 14,168 indecent images of children, prohibited material and extreme pornography.
Further searches also uncovered that he had photographed children passing his property as they walked to school.
Moore pleaded guilty on 11th August to three counts of possessing an indecent image of a child, one count of possessing a prohibited image of a child, and one count of possessing extreme pornography.
As well as the suspended sentence, he was ordered to forfeit his laptop and hard drives, pay a £500 fine and £100 in costs, and complete 40 days of rehabilitation activities.
He was also given a 10-year Sexual Harm Prevention Order with multiple strict conditions, including controlling any internet-connected devices, modifying his browsing history, using hard drives, downloading encryption software, possessing any device with a camera, messaging on platforms that delete exchanges, and installing a broadband router at home.
Moore is banned from approaching any school, playground or nursery, and must allow the force's Management of Sexual Offenders and Violent Offenders team to install monitoring software on his devices.
Detective Red Leeson, the officer in the case, said: "Moore was a calculated and secretive offender who had amassed this material over more than a decade – records showed some of the material he had was dated as early as 2015.
"Even with evidence of files being duplicated across several devices we are confident there were millions of indecent images of children in his possession and it is clear he requires monitoring under this court order.
"That work is carried out by officers across the force: MOSOVO are experts in the proactive management of offenders in the community, our neighbourhood officers are in contact with those that may have been affected by Moore locally, and we have detectives that will quickly respond to any reports he has breached the order.
"If he continues to offend and breaches his SHPO, he will face a custodial sentence."
The force said that in the past 12 months its Police Online Investigation Team safeguarded 229 children and carried out 152 warrants, resulting in 141 arrests.
Detective Inspector Emma Portfleet said: "I'm proud of my team - they face horrific content and high demand, yet they remain committed to safeguarding victims and the public.
"It's a burden we share with forces across the country. By sharing our intelligence we can minimise the impact on officers dealing with this terrible content, and ensure we make the clearest case at court about the harm these crimes cause.
"Our commitment doesn't stop at sentencing, and we work every day to try and identify the victims in this material and safeguard them.
"Our work is part of a global response to online child abuse and knowing we're making a real difference is incredibly fulfilling."