Paedophile former IT worker at Harrogate hospital has sentence reduced for second time

A former Harrogate hospital IT expert who downloaded three-quarters of a million indecent images of children has had his sentence reduced for a second time on a technicality.
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Martin Richard Shepherd, 49, who worked as an IT support officer at Harrogate District Hospital, was jailed for two years and given a four-year extended period on prison licence at York Crown Court in December for breaching a sexual-harm prevention order after police found he had deleted a “vast amount” of data from his tablet.

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It was suspected that Shepherd had been downloading more vile images of children and the evidence was strong enough for judge Simon Hickey to include an extended licence period for the “protection of the public”, namely young children.

Former IT expert at Harrogate District Hospital, Martin Richard Shepherd, 49, has had his sentence reduced for the second time.Former IT expert at Harrogate District Hospital, Martin Richard Shepherd, 49, has had his sentence reduced for the second time.
Former IT expert at Harrogate District Hospital, Martin Richard Shepherd, 49, has had his sentence reduced for the second time.

However, on Wednesday, Shepherd was back before the court for the second time in three weeks after it was decided that the sentence, which was first amended on December 16, was still unlawful because the breach was not a “specified” offence.

Accordingly, Mr Hickey revoked the original amended sentence from December, which had reduced the extended licence period from four years to three because it had exceeded the maximum for breach offences.

The new order means that Shepherd - who appeared via video link from Hull Prison - will not have to serve any extended licence period whatsoever and will simply serve the two-year determinate sentence – only half of which will be spent behind bars before he is released on parole.

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Mr Hickey said he could not pass the extended sentence “to protect the public” because it would be “unlawful under the legislation”.

Prosecutor Matthew Collins said that in the strict legal sense, Shepherd could not be classed as an “offender of particular concern” because the breach of the sexual-offenders’ order was not a “specified” offence.

When originally sentenced in December, Shepherd received a total six-year jail sentence – two years’ custody and four years on extended licence, after Mr Hickey branded him a “dangerous” offender as evidenced by the “vast amount” of material that had been deleted from his tablet.

At that hearing, Shepherd was told he would have to serve at least two-thirds of the two-year custodial sentence behind bars.

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In January 2017, Shepherd was jailed for five years for the original offences after police found 748,000 illegal images of children on his computer equipment.

He was also placed on the sex-offenders’ register for life for making and distributing indecent images of children, as well as gaining unauthorised access to private computer files at Harrogate Hospital and two counts of voyeurism related to webcams he had set up to take video footage of two female teenagers getting undressed in 2005 and 2012.

In 2016, police cyber-crime detectives finally snared the paedophile IT expert and found that he had amassed about three-quarters of a million indecent images of children after using his computer skills to avoid detection for about 14 years.

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He went undetected for so long because his expertise enabled him to encrypt the huge stash of vile images.

Shepherd, who worked in the hospital’s IT department for 22 years, trawled the dark web for indecent images from May 2002 to the time of his arrest in June 2016.

Police found a “massive library collection” of photos and videos 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 also distributed at least 19 depraved videos on a paedophilic file-sharing site and spied on naked and barely-dressed teenagers at a property in Harrogate after setting up covert video equipment.

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Chillingly, the court heard that the images were “just a snapshot” of all the illegal files that Shepherd had amassed over the years.

Shepherd was released from jail partway through his sentence but remained subject to strict curbs on his internet use which meant he had to make his computer devices available for inspection and was prohibited him from deleting his search history.

But in September last year, supervising officers made a regulatory visit to his home in Harrogate and found that he had been removing evidence of his internet activity.

Police seized a tablet from the property and examination of the device indicated that Shepherd had downloaded a “vast amount” of material which he had “wiped” or deleted.

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Shepherd admitted he had been looking at pornography including indecent images of children. He told officers he “couldn’t help himself” and that he needed to be “institutionalised”.

The IT buff - who was forced to resign from his job at the hospital in October 2016 following his arrest for the first set of offences - admitted four counts of breaching a sexual-harm prevention order.

He confessed he had been viewing indecent videos of children at least “twice a week” and sometimes on a daily basis. These were mainly sex scenes involving female children aged 10 and over.

Shepherd, formerly of Chatsworth Grove, was said to have a “particular interest” in the sexual abuse of girls between the ages of 10 and 14.

Richard Reed, for Shepherd, said the original sentence for the breach offences “couldn’t be justified” because no actual images were found on Shepherd’s device.