Two retired Metropolitan Police officers have been jailed over a three-year plot to share child sexual abuse images.
Jack Addis, 63, and Jeremy Laxton, 62, had posted hard drives to one another containing indecent images and videos of children, and had concealed them in hidden spaces in their homes.
The two former officers pleaded guilty at Southwark Crown Court to a charge of conspiring with Richard Watkinson, 49, to distribute or show indecent images. Mr Justice Wall jailed Addis for three years and nine months and Laxton for five years and nine months.
Watkinson, who was a serving Met chief inspector for neighbourhood policing at the West Area Command Unit, was found dead at his home in Buckinghamshire on 12 January. The court heard he took his own life.
He had been suspended from duty following his arrest in July 2021 and was due to be charged with conspiracy, as well as three counts of making indecent photos of a child, voyeurism and two counts of misconduct in public office.
His body was discovered the day he had been due to attend a police station to answer bail. Thames Valley Police confirmed that his death was being treated as unexplained but not suspicious.
According to the charge, the three men shared images between 1 January 2018 and 10 July 2021, with 2,516 of those registered as Category A, the worst kind.
Laxton, from Grantham, Lincolnshire, also pleaded guilty to three counts of making indecent images of a child, possession of a prohibited image, possessing an extreme pornographic image and possession of cannabis on or before 20 September 2021.
The images include 6,086 in Category A, 4,039 in Category B, 3,597 in Category C, seven prohibited images of a child and 56 extreme pornographic images which were “grossly offensive, disgusting or otherwise of an extreme character” depicting a person having sex with an animal.
He further admitted a charge of intentionally encouraging or assisting the commission of the offence of misconduct in a public office between December 1 2019 and May 1 2021.
Karen Walton, for Laxton, said her client has to live with the public deeming him “part and parcel” of trust in the police force being at “an all-time low”.
The judge said: “The images you traded in were of the most depraved.”
He added: “You had each been policemen and although not working directly in child protection must have been fully aware of the damage done to real children by the filming of such disturbing images.”
Investigators found devices in a “cavity” Laxton had created behind the walls of his home after seeing a message he sent someone to say he “buried” his equipment within the walls.
One officer, tasked with looking through the material, described one of the images as “one of the most disturbing Category A images in existence”.
The court heard Laxton, who appeared in the dock wearing a dark grey suit, has previously pleaded guilty to similar offences and was awaiting sentencing at Lincoln Crown Court, while Addis, from Perthshire, is a serving prisoner in Scotland.
He is currently serving an 18-month sentence for three counts of voyeurism and possessing indecent photographs of a child.
