Child porn: ex-police inspector faces jail

A FORMER Hastings police inspector has been warned he faces jail after admitting downloading explicit child pornography.

Christopher Wratten, 48, used his credit card to subscribe to sick websites featuring indecent images of children while he was a serving officer.

The inspector quit the force when he was charged as part of Operation Ore - a nationwide investigation into paedophiles paying to view child abuse websites.

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Lewes Crown Court heard how Wratten, who was based at Hastings and had been an officer for 29 years, claimed he had downloaded the pictures to collect evidence.

The court was shown images found on discs belonging to Wratten, formerly of Linley Close, which boasted of "X-Rated" porn and featured young boys and girls being sexually abused.

Stephanie Farrimond, prosecuting, said: "Officers went to Christopher Wratten's home address as part of Operation Ore.

"It was targeting individuals who had previously purchased images from internet websites called Lolita's Hardcore or Lolly Hard."

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She said police had information that Wratten had purchased 30 days of access to one of the websites using his credit card to pay $29.95.

She said: "He consented to officers entering and searching the premises and then said, 'I do surf the net for pornography, I will explain the reason for that later. I came across a child pornography site and was quite disgusted by what I saw. I continued to access such sites and reported them to the Internet Watch people."

Miss Farrimond said he also said: "I gave up, it was so unpleasant."

She added that police seized his computer as well as 63 floppy discs which were taken for forensic examination in July last year.

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"He went voluntarily to Lewes Police Headquarters and was interviewed. At this stage the police had not examined either his hard drive or the floppy discs.

'He was specifically asked about the 63 floppy discs, whether there was any pornography on them. "He replied, 'Not that I am aware of.'

"He admitted accessing the Lolly Hard website. He said he came across it when searching for adult pornography, he was disgusted by what he saw and he wanted to access it so he could get the websites addresses and then report them to the Internet Watch Foundation.

"He said he intended to tell his chief superintendent about it but he said, 'He may suspect my motives so I destroyed my disc."

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Miss Farrimond said that police later found 95 images on five individual discs which had been deleted but were discovered in forensic investigation.

Wratten admitted seven counts of making indecent photographs between September 1999 and November 2002. A further charge was ordered to lie on file.

Wratten was bailed to appear at the court for sentence on November 27 after reports have been compiled.

Bailing him, Judge Richard Brown warned Wratten: "The fact I'm putting it back for reports is no indication of the final outcome.

"All sentencing options, including custody, will be open to me."

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