Description
A former Hackney councillor has avoided jail after admitting possessing indecent images of children.
Recorder Jonathan Ashley-Norman told Tom Dewey: “You have taken considerable steps since your arrest to address your offending behaviour.”
Handing him down a 12-month suspended sentence, he said: Your actions have had a devastating impact on your life and your closest family.”
He gave him credit for an early guilty plea and the work he had done to overcome his problem in looking at indecent images of children.
He also ordered devices to be forfeited, told Dewey to pay £500 costs and put him on a 10-year Sexual Harm Prevention Order, which will restrict his contact with children.
Thomas Dewey, who was elected as a Labour councillor for De Beauvoir ward, was arrested by detectives from the National Crime Agency who seized laptops and tablets at his home in Hertford Road in Hackney, just days before May’s local elections last year.
He had a “huge problem” with looking at indecent images of children from the internet for his own use, Wood Green Crown Court heard.
Last month, the 36-year-old admitted a charge of making five category A indecent images of children, a further charge of making 41 category B indecent images, as well as making 203 category C indecent images of children, on 29 April 2022 in Hackney.
Images are graded with category A considered the worst.
Dewey, now of Hampshire, also admitted a charge of possessing 78 extreme pornographic images of children on 29 April 2022 and having 1,523 prohibited images of children in his possession on or before 20 January 2022.
The court heard images date from between 14 January 2008 to 27 April 2022, two days before his arrest at home in Hackney where he was “the sole occupant.”
The NCA seized two laptops, two tablets and a hard drive and Dewey was arrested and cautioned at 7.03am.
They had identified four “CyberTipline” reports which has user ID to a google drive and Dewey had uploaded indecent images of children to his personal account