Ben Sharpe

Ben Sharpe, a 31-year-old man from Cambridge, was sentenced to two years and six months in prison at Peterborough Crown Court on 21 May 2024 after being found with more than 2,000 indecent images of children.

Sharpe was visited at his home in the Huntingdon Road area of Cambridge by police on 31 January 2024 as part of routine checks on convicted sex offenders. During the visit, he handed over his mobile phone but admitted he had deleted some apps before the officers arrived. A search of his device uncovered 2,188 indecent images of children, along with additional images stored on a linked cloud storage account.

Sharpe had previously been convicted of indecent images of children offences in 2021 and was subject to a Sexual Harm Prevention Order (SHPO). He was found to have breached this order by uninstalling mobile internet browsers, deleting apps, failing to give police access to his cloud storage, and installing a storage cleaner app.

He pleaded guilty to four counts of breaching a SHPO and three counts of making indecent photographs of children. He also admitted one count each of possessing a prohibited image of a child and possessing an extreme pornographic image. Sharpe was ordered to sign the sex offenders register for 10 years.

Detective Constable Andrew McKeane, who investigated the case, 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."

The case was investigated by Cambridgeshire Police's MOSOVO (Management of Sexual or Violent Offenders) unit.