Suffolk head teacher jailed over one million child abuse images

Tom Singleton was found with more than a million images of child sex abuse on his devices

A head teacher who downloaded more than a million indecent images of children was the safeguarding lead at his primary school, a court heard.

Tom Singleton, 41, of Framlingham in Suffolk, admitted eight charges, including owning a "paedophile manual", Ipswich Crown Court was told.

The offences involved more than 20,000 Category A images of children - considered the most extreme content - and further images featured animals.

Singleton was jailed for five years.

The judge, Recorder Richard Christie, told Singleton: "Child abuse has real victims...In every image you downloaded a child had been abused."

Singleton admitted the offences after an 18-month investigation by the National Crime Agency (NCA).

Devices were seized at his former home in Stowmarket, Suffolk, in November 2020, and he was arrested in February 2021.

'Pseudo images'

The court heard how Singleton had also superimposed the face of a former girl pupil on three category A images, creating "pseudo images".

Her image had been been taken from a photograph of a school Remembrance Day event.

The NCA said Singleton had superimposed a photo of himself on pictures to make it appear he was carrying out the abuse.

The court also heard how the 170-page "manual" included guidance of how to target single mothers of young children.

Items of children's clothing, and a toddler-sized doll were also recovered at his home.

The NCA said Singleton did not have children himself and "could provide no explanation for who the items belonged to".

Police found a total of 1,050,448 Category A, B and C images of children in Singleton's possession.

He also pleaded guilty to taking 37 pseudo images of children, 13 of which were deemed Category A, and possessing more than 45,000 prohibited images of children.

Some 52 further "extreme pornographic images" involving a live animal were also discovered.

The judge at Ipswich Crown Court described Singleton as "dangerous"

Singleton was placed on the sex offenders' register indefinitely and made the subject of a sexual harm prevention order.

The judge told him he was "dangerous" and ordered that he must have no contact or communication with anyone under 18.

Singleton, he said, had shown "an abuse of trust" as a head teacher.

Michael Parkinson, NCA operations manager, said: "This case highlights how an offender's behaviour can escalate, from downloading abuse material to finding a community of like-minded individuals online who normalise and even encourage this criminal behaviour."

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