A paedophile from Southall who made and distributed more than 60,000 indecent images of children has been jailed.
Even while on bail, having admitted to police that he downloaded and kept the indecent images, he continued to use the internet to find child pornography.
Regnoricus Shanmugam was first arrested by police who were acting on intelligence that an unknown suspect was using the internet at an address in Chaucer Avenue, Hayes, to download indecent images of children, Metropolitan Police said.
Shanmugam was at the address when police arrived on December 20, 2016, and confessed that he had been downloading the illegal pictures at a south London police station.
The Trinity Road, Southall, resident was released on bail and ordered to come back in October 2017. While on bail he was not allowed to have any unsupervised contact with anyone below the age of 18. He also had to report to a police station once a week.
The 28-year-old’s bail was extended to March 2018 but Metropolitan Police became aware of new evidence that he has been distributing indecent images of children.
Three devices with memory cards were recovered by police in a swoop on January 12, which proved that he had been downloading indecent images since having first been arrested in October 2016.
Shanmugam was charged that day with three counts of distributing indecent images of children and three counts of making indecent photographs of a child.
He was remanded into custody the following day at Uxbridge Magistrates’ Court before appearing at Isleworth Crown Court on June 11, where he pleaded guilty to all counts. He was sentenced to three years in prison on Tuesday (July 2), the Met said.
PC Ania Sudol, attached to the Met’s Online Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (OCSEA), said:“Shanmugam told officers in his interview that he knew that viewing or downloading these sorts of images was illegal, however he continued to do so, showing blatant disregard for the law.
“Analysis of computers, hard-drives and mobile phones seized subsequently identified that he had over 60,000 indecent images of children and had been involved in the large scale distribution of these images via instant messaging apps over a significant period of time.
“I’m thankful to all the officers involved in this operation in helping put a very dangerous man in prison for a very long time.”
