Gloucester man jailed for making tens of thousands of indecent images of children

A Gloucester man has been jailed after pleading guilty to making thousands of indecent images of children.

Philip Wood, aged 71 and of Westgate Street, was sentenced at Gloucester Crown Court last Wednesday (23 October).

He had been charged with eight counts of making indecent images of children and nine counts of breaching a Sexual Harm Prevention Order.

Wood is a registered sexual offender and was sentenced at Gloucester Crown Court in 2020 in relation to a number of sexual offences. He was handed a Sexual Harm Prevention Order at the time, which expires on 1 December 2027.

As part of the order, Wood was not allowed to own any electronic devices, such as mobile phones or laptops, without declaring them to the police and offering them to police for inspection.

He received unannounced home visits from Gloucestershire Constabulary's Management of Sexual Offenders and Violent Offenders (MOSOVO) team.

Officers visited Wood on a number of occasions between August 2023 and May 2024. During each visit, they found that Wood had electronic devices that he had not declared or made available for inspection, these contained indecent images of children. He was also using a pseudonym for online accounts, which he was banned from having under the order.

After suspicions were raised on the first visit around the breaches, Wood’s devices were seized and examined. He was arrested in November and bailed while a case was built against him, before being rearrested and remanded in May this year.

Across the various devices, officers found in excess of 134,172 indecent images of children as well as more than 150 hours of video footage.

Wood pleaded guilty to the offences at a hearing on 7 August. In mitigation, he told the court that he had a thrill of the forbidden and that he had attended previous rehabilitation courses which had not had the desired effect.

He was sentenced to three years in prison for each of the nine breaches of his Sexual Harm Prevention Order.

In addition, he received three years for making Category A indecent images of children, two years for making Category B images and 12 months for making Category C images.

All sentences are to run concurrently. He was also put on the Sex Offenders' Register for life.

Detective Constable Martin Hayward, from the MOSOVO team, said: "Wood has continued to offend by making indecent images of children, he has made determined attempts to avoid detection and has shown a disregard to the court order served upon him.

"Making indecent images of children is child sexual abuse, and perpetrators have harmed children by creating this material.

"We are determined to protecting those who are most vulnerable in our society from dangerous offenders, and we have a team which is dedicated to ensuring offenders who pose a risk to others are compliant with court orders, and if they aren't, that they are put back before the court.

"Wood has shown a long period of non-compliance to the order which is made to prevent further offending.

"He repeatedly made concerted efforts to hide his offending, resulting in numerous breaches of his court order for which he has now been sentenced.

"This case involved great work from our Digital Offender Managers team. The whole MOSOVO team has worked hard throughout this investigation to uncover those lies and bring a dangerous registered sex offender to justice."