Former police officer Thomas Peter Simmons jailed for child porn

A former police officer has today been jailed for making indecent images of children.

Thomas Peter Simmons, 61, worked for Kent Police in Folkestone before moving to Dover District Council to work as a fraud officer.

The Kingsnorth Gardens, Folkestone, resident left DDC following his arrest on suspicion of child porn charges last year.

Simmons, 61, pleaded guilty to making indecent images of children and was today sentenced at Maidstone Crown Court to a year in prison.

Detective Chief Inspector Paul Fotheringham, of Kent Police's Public Protection Crime Unit, said: "Downloading images of children being subjected to real time abuse is as severe an offence as the real time abuse those children are suffering.

"These type of offences will be not tolerated and Kent Police will continue to bring offenders before the courts irrespective of their background or standing within the community."

Simmons was charged in August with six offences of making indecent images of children, three offences of distributing indecent images of children and one offence of sending obscene communications over a telecommunications network.

A warrant was executed at his address in Folkestone during which officers recovered mobile telephones Simmons used to access the images online.

He was found with 47 images, with 15 of these being at level four, the second most serious type of image.

This is Kent.