Yorkshire police officer caught with indecent images of children avoids prison

Police constable Alan Dudzinski, 20, was arrested at home in May 2021, shortly after he finished his training, and disturbing images were found on his phone and a computer.

He was given a suspended prison sentence at Durham Crown Court today, after he pleaded guilty to three counts of making indecent images of children and one count of possessing extreme pornography last month.

Judge Ray Singh also imposed a four-month curfew, which will be monitored by an electronic tag, and ordered Dudzinski to complete a rehabilitation programme.

At an earlier hearing, Matthew Burdon, prosecuting, said 125 indecent images and videos of young girls and boys were discovered on his devices and police found evidence of “a large number of search terms indicating a sexual interest in children”.

Forty six of the images were category A – the most serious – and they depicted girls as young as six being abused. Officers found another 41 category B images, 34 at category C images, featuring victims as young as three, and four images depicting beasitality.

His barrister Bo-Eun Jung told the court yesterday that Dudzinski is “genuinely remorseful for his actions” but a prison sentence “would not address the underlying causes of his offending behaviour”.

She then asked the judge to adopt proposals of the Probation Service and order Dudzinski to complete a rehabilitation programme, instead of sending him straight to prison.

“He has accepted that he will, as a result of this, lose his police career. He has already lost his good character and, as noted in the (pre-sentence), he has seriously, if not permanently, damaged his relationship with his family,” she said.

Judge Singh said an “appropriate punishment can be achieved without an immediate sentence”, as Dudzinski has no previous convictions and he poses a relatively low risk to the public.

He imposed a sentence of eight months imprisonment – suspended for two years – and a 10-year sexual harm prevention order.

He said: “At the time you accessed this material, whilst not at work or having anything to do with your work commitments, you were employed as a police constable with West Yorkshire Police.

“The general public will no doubt look at the offences, your occupation and the disrepute it brings to the profession.”

He added: “Possession of indecent images of children and extreme pornography, as I've already, indicated are very serious sexual offences.

“It fuels child sexual abuse – the untold suffering and harm to children who are abused, photographed and videod being abused often from a very young age – with profound and in many cases lifelong adverse consequences for them.

“As such, this is the complete opposite of a victimless crime.”

Dudzinski, who was based in Leeds, has been suspended from duty since he was arrested and he will now face a misconduct hearing.

Detective Chief Superintendent Nicola Bryar said: “This officer’s actions go against everything that we stand for as a police service.

"I hope at least that this court case demonstrates that we will investigate and take action against anyone who commits such offences."