Retired head jailed as ‘danger to children’ over huge haul of porn

Terry Ladlow, 73, who worked for more than three decades as a teacher and headmaster including spells at North Riding College in Scarborough and in Hull, was jailed at York Crown Court yesterday after admitting 24 separate charges for offences between 2005 and last year.

The church organist, of Hamerton Road, Hunmanby, near Filey, was imprisoned for six months, placed on the sex offenders’ register for seven years and given an indefinite sexual offences prevention order.

Detective Constable Nigel Pepper, of the Protecting Vulnerable Persons Unit at Scarborough, said: “Ladlow spent a number of years amassing many thousands of indecent images of children. This collection can only be described as disturbing and depraved.

“The defence that he prayed for the young victims as he viewed the images, and that he felt he was helping the victims of abuse, is clearly utter nonsense.

“Quite simply, Ladlow is a danger to children and particularly boys.

“Without people like him there would not be a market for such degrading material and children would not be subjected to such horrendous abuse.”

An earlier court hearing heard that Ladlow was caught in possession of images in each of the five categories of the scales used to categorise the severity of child pornography.

Ladlow moved to Hunmanby in 2004 from Wetwang, near Driffield, and became the church organist at St Oswald’s Church in Filey. He began a career in primary school teaching at the age of 22 and spent 33 years in the profession, including two decades as a headteacher.

He is also well-known for film-making work.

His Yorkshire Heritage videos, of which he has produced a number of editions, have sold more than 28,000 copies. He created 10 educational documentaries which he sold to schools and the British Council and took part in the Scarborough Silent Film Festival. His recent projects have included writing scores for silent movies and restoring historic films of Scarborough.