Retired police officer sentenced for indecent images of children

A retired police officer has been sentenced after admitting making indecent images of children as young as three years old.

Brian Emeney, 70, of Stratford-Upon-Avon was sentenced today (14 October 2022) after he pleaded guilty to three counts of making indecent photographs of a child.

The ex-Warwickshire Police officer was arrested following intelligence received by his former police force about the child sexual exploitation images.

On 6 August 2020, police attended his home address where he lived alone and arrested him. A subsequent forensic examination of a number of digital devices recovered from his home address uncovered a large number of indecent images of children.

Emeney, who was working as a licenced taxi driver when he was arrested, admitted the devices were his but denied the offences, claiming he had issues with pop-ups and concerns about other people having access to his devices.

Forensic examination of his devices revealed three category A images, nine category B images and 1248 category C images almost all on his laptop, with three on a USB drive.

Emeney was found to have downloaded the images over a three year period between 3 May 2017 and 20 July 2020.

He was interviewed again on 23 July 2021 and he answered no comment to all questions, but subsequently sent a letter via his solicitor, denying any sexual interest in young people and suggesting some occasions when tradespeople may have had access to his computer.

However, he pleaded guilty at his first court appearance and the matter was sent to Warwick Crown Court for sentence where he received a 24 month community order with 30 days rehabilitation activity requirement days and 200 hours of unpaid work.  He was also ordered to sign the sex offenders register for five years, made subject of a sexual harm prevention order also for five years, a deprivation order for his laptop and USB drive, and ordered to pay £425 in court costs.

Kelly Crowe of the CPS said: “These types of offences are not victimless. Brian Emeney downloaded sickening images of real children being abused over a lengthy period of time. The Crown Prosecution Service takes offending of this nature extremely seriously and will work tirelessly to bring offenders to justice.”