A paedophile, Ashley Holmes, has been incarcerated following the revelation by police that he had accessed numerous hours of abhorrent child abuse footage.
Law enforcement was notified of Ashley Holmes upon the discovery that he had disseminated pornographic photographs online through a WhatsApp account on 7 March 2023.
Examination of the 26-year-old’s mobile devices disclosed 27 days of obscene video content, alongside graphic child abuse imagery and a guide on perpetrating child abuse while evading detection.
A significant portion of the tape and numerous photographs were classified as Category A, illustrating the gravest instances of sexual abuse of children by adults.
Ashley Holmes, formerly of Sutton-in-Ashfield, also scrawled comments about abusing children in a diary he kept while on remand in a prison cell.
Mobile phone analysis revealed he had accounts on a storage and data service assessed via a server based in New Zealand.
Detectives worked with counterparts in New Zealand and the country’s internal affairs department to access these files and discover Ashley Holmes had stored indecent images and videos.
In total, Ashley Holmes was in possession of more than 452 hours of Category A videos, 125 hours of Category B videos and 79 hours of Category C videos.
Ashley Holmes, of no fixed abode, was given a nine-year custodial sentence when he appeared at Nottingham Crown Court on Monday (14 October). He will spend five years in jail and a further four years on licence.
Ashley Holmes has also been added to the sex offenders’ register for life.
He had earlier pleaded guilty to three counts of making indecent photographs, possessing a prohibited image of a child, possessing extreme pornographic images and possessing a paedophile manual.
Detective Constable Tom Nuttall, of Nottinghamshire Police, said:
“This was a complex investigation into an individual we believe poses a significant danger to children.
“It is rare to find such an extensive amount of footage, and the videos, as well as the images, depicted the very worst abuse of children.
“We know a real child has suffered appalling physical and emotional abuse to produce every one of these images or videos.
“Offenders like Ashley Holmes may not be committing this abuse in person, but they are certainly contributing to it every time they view, download or share this disturbing material.
“This is why we carry out such meticulous investigations to ensure paedophiles like Holmes are put before the courts.”
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