Ex-RAF man had ‘most appalling’ indecent images
AFORMER RAF serviceman with a distinguished career in uniform has been exposed as a “shameless paedophile” addicted to looking at pictures of child abuse.
Paul Randle was found with more than 2,000 indecent images, some showing a newborn baby being sexually abused.
Swansea Crown Court heard there were another 118,000 pictures and videos on his computers which police had not examined or categorised.
Tom Scapens, prosecuting, said Randle was arrested after police raided his Ammanford house on the morning of November 6 last year.
Officers seized a number of devices from the property, including a Samsung tablet, and a subsequent forensic examination found more than 2,000 indecent images of children – from category A, the most serious kind, as well as B and C – along with software for accessing the dark web, open links to known paedophile sites, and a link to an online photo storage facility.
The prosecutor said among the images found was one of a naked newborn baby being sexually abused by a woman.
Another 118,000 images were located on various devices but not examined.
Officers also found Randle had been involved in extensive online chats about the sexual abuse of children using a number of platforms including Skype and Kik.
In his police interviews the defendant denied downloading indecent images, saying much of the computer equipment had been bought second hand. He said he had spent more than 20 years with the RAF Police working in IT, counter-intelligence, and security.
Randle later claimed to have been trying to expose paedophiles online, then said the images were part of his work, and then changed his story yet again to claim he was being blackmailed.
Randle, of Saron Road, Ammanford,
had previously pleaded guilty to three counts of making indecent images of children and three counts of distributing indecent images when he appeared in the dock for sentencing.
The court heard he has no previous convictions.
Nicholas Wragg, for Randle, said his client had been working with a therapist since his arrest and was making a “dedicated effort” to address the issues he had.
He said Newport-born Randle had applied to join Gwent Police as a young man – but was rejected for being “a fraction too short” – and instead joined the Royal Air Force.
The barrister said during his career with the RAF he had worked in counter-intelligence, in security for the Royal Family, had served in conflict zones including Afghanistan and Iraq – where he had conducted armed patrols, come under fire, and seen children blown up by roadside bombs – and been commended by NATO.
He said: “The defendant says he is haunted by his past but does not talk about it.”
Mr Wragg added that there was nothing to indicate the 118,000 images not checked by police were indecent, and said they could merely be family snapshots and the like.
Judge Geraint Walters said some of the images the defendant had downloaded were “among the most appalling imaginable”.
He said it was “beyond the comprehension of human beings” how someone could get sexual gratification from looking at pictures of newborn babies being abused, and he described Randle as a “shameless paedophile who is addicted to child pornography”.
Giving the defendant a one-third discount for his guilty pleas, the judge sentenced him to a total of two years and four months in prison. Randle will serve up to half of that period in custody before being released on licence to serve the remainder in the community.
The defendant will be on the sex offenders register for the next 10 years, and was made the subject of a sexual harm prevention order for the same length of time to control his access to the internet.