Peterborough detective in sex abuse unit jailed over images

Det Con James Jordan was based at the Thorpe Wood Police Station in Peterborough

A child safeguarding detective who downloaded sexual images from his own police force's files has been jailed.

James Jordan, 32, was working as a detective constable when he accessed Cambridgeshire Police's confidential systems.

He viewed videos of children being abused and images of women in voyeurism cases.

He also copied sex videos from the case of a young girl he was investigating, St Albans Crown Court heard.

When his police laptop was examined, officers found he had hidden images in a One Note file, under the title 'Hotel Greece.'

Jordan was jailed for four years after admitting eight offences: five of making indecent photographs/pseudo photographs of a child and three of misconduct in a public office.

He told investigators he began looking at the images to appear busy while avoiding work.

Prosecutor Matthew Sorel-Cameron said Jordan, who was based at Thorpe Wood Police Station in Peterborough, had been a trainee detective constable in the child abuse safeguarding unit for three years.

Between February 2021 and his arrest in August 2022, he had download sex images of adult women from cases in which he had no investigation involvement, he added.

In May 2022, he collected the young girl's phone which had child abuse videos on it.

He conducted a video interview with the girl and later copied 12 images on to his own personal phone.

Mr Sorel-Cameron said Jordan had also accessed the computer in the digital forensics unit, which led to his arrest last August.

Police found 50 serious sexual offence images involving the abuse of young children including one aged 18 months on a memory stick.

In a victim statement the mother of the girl said he had abused her trust and would never have guessed he was the kind of man who had a sexual interest in children.

The cost of the police investigation into Jordan and dealing with 28 victims who have received apologies was £400,000 said the prosecutor.

Jailing him, Judge Michael Roques said: "This was a violation of a very high degree of trust placed in you. You were not only a police officer, you were a member of child abuse and safeguarding unit.

Jordan must register as a sex offender and abide by the terms of a sexual harm prevention order for 10 years.

Update 11 April 2023: This article has been updated with further information about the nature of some of the content obtained by Jordan.