July 2006 Ex-police worker jailed over child-abuse pics A FORMER worker at a police bureau which aims to prevent the activities of paedophiles was jailed yesterday for possessing indecent images of children. Richard Raikes, 27, of Neath, also used a webcam to try to persuade an 11-year-old boy to expose himself to Raikes. At Swansea Crown Court, Raikes admitted making, possessing and disseminating indecent images of children. He also pleaded guilty to attempting to incite a child to commit a sex act. The court heard Raikes was a civilian at the South Wales Police Public Protection Bureau based in Bridgend and Cockett, which has child protection as one of its major tasks. While based at the Bridgend bureau, bespectacled Raikes used his former fiance’s computer at home to download the sickening indecent images. They ranged from children posing to images of the worst kind involving children being abused. The court heard Raikes used his fiance’s computer entirely without her knowledge to collect the images. He also started an email relationship using the Yahoo messenger service and a webcam with a woman from East Wales who had a young son. While the woman was out he asked the boy, who cannot be identified, to expose himself but he told his mother who informed the police and Yahoo messenger service officials. Gwent Police started an investigation to find Raikes. In the meantime Raikes was transferred to a police public protection bureau unit in Cockett, Swansea. There, he told a police officer that he had seen an indecent image of a child on his computer and asked if he could go to jail. The computer was examined and the images discovered and it was later found he was responsible for the offence involving the young boy in the Gwent force area. Raikes wept yesterday as his barrister Jenny Treherne said, “He has lost his good name, his fiance and the home in Neath they were buying together and his job. “He is a young man who needs to be helped and his unusual approach to the police about the matters should go in his credit.” The offences were not related in any way to Raikes’s job at the bureau. Jailing Raikes for 12 months yesterday, Judge Michael Burr told him, “Each of the 579 images involved in this case relates to a real child involved in this evil form of abuse and those children deserve the full protection of the courts. “You developed what has been described as an addiction to this. “It is clear you have a serious problem with children to whom you are clearly sexually attracted.” As well as being jailed for a year Raikes was placed on the sex offenders register for 10 years and was barred for life from working with children. Miss Treherne said Raikes claimed he had not seen the worst of the images found on the computer which police examined.