A repeat sex offender has been jailed after police uncovered thousands of indecent images of children during a routine compliance visit at his Cambridge home. Ben Sharpe, 31, was visited by officers from Cambridgeshire Police’s Management of Sexual and Violent Offenders (MOSOVO) team at about 1.15pm on 31 January at an address in the Huntingdon Road area of Cambridge.
Sharpe, who had previously been convicted for indecent images of children offences in 2021, handed his mobile phone to officers for inspection. However, he admitted deleting apps from the device before letting officers into the property and was immediately arrested.
A forensic examination of the phone later uncovered 2,188 indecent images of children stored on the device and within linked cloud storage accounts.
Police also discovered Sharpe had repeatedly breached the terms of a Sexual Harm Prevention Order (SHPO) imposed following his earlier conviction. Investigators found he had uninstalled internet browsers, failed to give officers access to cloud storage, deleted apps and installed a storage-cleaning application on the phone.
At Peterborough Crown Court yesterday (21 May), Sharpe, of Brooks Road, Cambridge, was jailed for two years and six months after pleading guilty to:
- Four counts of breaching a Sexual Harm Prevention Order
- Three counts of making indecent photographs of children
- One count of possessing a prohibited image of a child
- One count of possessing an extreme pornographic image
He was also ordered to sign the sex offenders register for 10 years.
Detective Constable Andrew McKeane, who investigated, said:
“The images are the worst I’ve graded since moving into my current role about five years ago so I’m happy Sharpe has been jailed. He clearly hasn’t learnt anything from his previous conviction.
“Officers from MOSOVO will always check on convicted sex offenders in the county to make sure they are adhering to their conditions and court orders. In this case, a routine visit has uncovered further offences which has led to a repeat paedophile being jailed.”
