A child sex offender who was caught making indecent images of children while serving a suspended sentence for the same offence has been jailed for three years.
Callum Harpur, 20, had more than 16,000 indecent images of children and 14 electronic devices in his possession when Bedfordshire Police executed a warrant at his address in July.
Harpur was serving a suspended prison sentence at the time but had only disclosed two of these electronic devices to his offender manager.
Examination of his devices found Harpur had been distributing indecent images of children via the Telegram app, as well as taking indecent images of children and making many more.
After giving a ‘no comment’ interview to detectives from Bedfordshire Police’s Internet Child Abuse Investigation Team (ICAIT), Harpur was charged and remanded into custody.
On 24 October he pleaded guilty to four counts of making indecent images of children, as well as taking and distributing indecent images of children. He also pleaded guilty to breaching his sexual harm prevention order.
Harpur, of Western Street, Bedford, was sentenced to spend three years in prison and will be placed on the sex offenders register for life.
PC Yasmine Batson from ICAIT, who led the investigation, said: “People involved in this kind of heinous crime should be under no illusion that we will be coming after them.
“Our Offender Management Unit has been recognised as outstanding and we have invested in cutting edge technology to help us uncover serious crime online.
“We will not stop in our efforts to keep children in Bedfordshire safe and get offenders like Harpur off the street.”
If you are worried about the safety of a child online or have concerns that someone you know may be committing sexual offences against children or making or distributing explicit materials of children online, please report it to police via beds.police.uk/ro/report
