Former Harrogate Hospital IT worker labelled 'a danger to children' jailed again for downloading thousands of indecent images

Martin Richard Shepherd, 50, from Harrogate, was already under lifetime curbs on his internet use after being convicted of downloading three-quarters of a million indecent images of children in 2017.

But when police officers paid him an impromptu visit in September 2020, they found he had been deleting “vast” amounts of data on his computer, York Crown Court heard.

Analysis of his devices revealed that the computer buff had downloaded hundreds more vile images – including videos featuring child rape – while on prison licence and subject to a lifetime sexual-harm prevention order to stop him trawling the web for illicit material.

Shepherd – who had “curated” the images according to their levels of depravity - told officers he found “irresistible” the urge to view images of children being sexually abused.

He admitted possessing indecent images and appeared for sentence via video link on Thursday.

The court heard he was working as an IT expert at Harrogate District Hospital at the time of his original offences in 2016, when police found about 750,000 indecent images of children on his computer devices.

This led to a five-year jail sentence in 2017 for possessing and distributing indecent images, as well as two counts of voyeurism and computer misuse in relation to his work at the hospital.

Shepherd, described as a loner, served half of that sentence behind bars before being released on prison licence in July 2019.

In September 2020, police monitoring officers made an unannounced visit to his home in Harrogate and found he had been deleting a “vast amount” of data from an Android tablet, in breach of the sexual-harm prevention order.

This resulted in a further two-year jail sentence in January last year for four breaches of the order.

However, no illegal images were found at the time and it was not until later that a further police investigation unearthed yet more sickening images of children which Shepherd had stored on five memory sticks.

Prosecutor Jonathan Foy said that Shepherd, formerly of Chatsworth Grove, had started deleting the images – about 125 gigabytes in total – within six months of being released from prison.

“When interviewed, he admitted that as soon as he was released from custody, his temptation to (view) pornographic images of children was something he found irresistible,” added Mr Foy.

Analysis of the devices revealed that Shepherd had downloaded hundreds of indecent images of all levels of seriousness, including 148 photos and videos rated Category A – the worst kind of such material.

They included images of girls aged between four and 11 years of age being raped by adult men.

One of the children in the depraved movie clips was unconscious.

Mr Foy said: “He troubles himself not only to obtain (the indecent images), but to separately save them (on USB sticks), curate them (in terms of) highest quality."

There were a “large number” of young victims featured in the sordid scenes.

The court heard that Shepherd, who worked in the hospital’s IT department for 22 years, had been downloading indecent images of children since 2002, but his computer skills enabled him to encrypt the huge stash of vile material and avoid detection for 14 years.

In 2016, police cyber-crime detectives finally snared him and found that he had amassed about three-quarters of a million indecent images of children.

They found a “massive library collection” of images featuring the serious sexual abuse of “very young” children including 12-month-old babies and youngsters who had been drugged or plied with alcohol.

Shepherd had painstakingly catalogued the images in 22 encrypted volumes and used an “extremely-complex” system of passwords to hide them.

He also distributed about 20 depraved videos on a paedophilic file-sharing site.

His previous conviction for voyeurism related to two young women whom he secretly filmed getting undressed and walking around naked at a property in Harrogate after setting up covert video equipment.

Those offences occurred between 2005 and 2012.

The previous offence of computer misuse, or gaining unauthorised access to private computer files, occurred at Harrogate Hospital where Shepherd, who was working in the IT department, had somehow “abstracted” photos from a family computer of a young girl in her underwear, bikini and school uniform.

Ashleigh Metcalfe, mitigating, said Shepherd had been on custodial remand for over a year and had been working in Hull Prison’s upholstery department.

However, a probation report noted that since being forced to resign from his hospital job in 2016 following his arrest for the original offences, Shepherd had spent much of his time searching for indecent images of children.

Judge Simon Hickey said the discovery of even more indecent images “reinforced” his opinion that Shepherd was a dangerous offender “and that he will simply continue to reoffend”.

He said he had noted the “extremely young” ages of the children featuring in the sordid videos.

He told Shepherd: “You admitted (to police) that you can’t stop yourself finding children of this age irresistible.

"You were downloading a vast amount of material.

"The children depicted are clearly vulnerable and visibly distressed.”

Shepherd, described as intelligent, was jailed for 12 months.

He will be released from jail halfway through that sentence but will then have to serve an extended two-year period on prison licence.

Mr Hickey also added 10 new prohibitions to the sexual-harm prevention order for the protection of the public, namely young girls.

Shepherd will remain on the sex-offenders’ register for life.