Convicted sex offender who moved to Yorkshire found with thousands of indecent images of children

Registered sex offender Richard Goundry, 38, moved to Whitby from Middelsborough in March 2016.

Goundry, of Gledhill Drive, had already been convicted of making indecent images in Middlesborough in 2015 and in Sunderland in 2015.

North Yorkshire Police were alerted to him after an attempt to arrange or facilitate a child sex offence was connected to his IP address at his Whitby home.

Officers from the Digital Investigation and Intelligence team detected Goundry was responsible for making hundreds of indecent images in June this year.

He was immediately arrested and remanded into custody by police to protect the public and prevent further offending.

Goundry was subsequently charged and pleaded guilty to a range of offences including two counts of distributing indecent images of children; six counts of making indecent images of children – this consisted of just under 2,000 images covering categories A, B and C; two counts of breaching a sexual harm prevention order; failing to comply with notification requests from the sex offenders’ register; and attempting to arrange or facilitate the commission of a child sex offence.

He will also be subject to a four-year extended licence when released from prison.

Detective Constable Graeme Boast, of the Digital Investigation and Intelligence team, said: “The outcome at court is very pleasing and puts another serious offender behind bars where he cannot pose a danger to the public.

“This was a complex digital investigation supported by specialist staff from the Digital Forensic Unit and an analyst who had to carefully examine a high-volume of material that had been recovered during the inquiry.

“This is painstaking work but this case demonstrates the expertise North Yorkshire Police has at its disposal to secure such convictions.

“As a registered sex offender, Richard Goundry was closely monitored by the police and other public protection agencies. This enabled us to catch him again, minimise any risk to the wider public, and ultimately bring him to justice.”