January 2012 Darwen paedophile jailed for 13 years A DARWEN paedophile who sexually assaulted a little girl in his bedroom then took indecent images of her and other girls has been jailed for 13 years. Darren Lee Cook, 26, described as a ‘prolific, determined and systematic’ offender by police, was hounded out of his estate by vigilantes after he was first arrested. Last month he admitted 43 counts of making and possessing 289 indecent images and movies of children, including some at the most serious level, inciting a child to engage in sexual activity, and the sexual assault charge. He was caught out after one eagle-eyed officer recognised the corner of a bedspread in a handful of the illegal pictures, which he had seen in Cook’s bedroom when a search warrant had been executed. Cook denied a further charge of attempting to bring a nine-year-old Serbian into the country, allegedly to commit a further sexual offence, and Judge Heather Lloyd ordered it to lie on the file. The Blackburn with Darwen child sexual exploitation Engage team had received an intelligence package from Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) with Cook as a suspect. They seized his computer and found ‘fragments of data’ which they claimed suggested Cook had spoken about trafficking a nine-year-old Serbian girl into the country for a few hundred pounds. When Cook, originally of Birch Hall Avenue, Darwen, was first charged in November 2010, he was bailed out of the Darwen area to Saxon Close in Oswaldtwistle. But in February 2011, word got around the small estate and neighbours started a campaign and posted leaflets to 60 other houses identifying his home address to other parents. Police were called and had to remove him with a blanket over his head for his own safety. DS Mark Whelan said: “Cook is a dangerous man who targeted and exploited on a vulnerable young girl. “This type of predatory crime will not be tolerated and we will continue to target, warn and prosecute offenders to hit home the message that this type of behaviour is not just unacceptable, it is criminal, and we will pursue those people involved and bring them to justice.”