Ex Peterborough school governor denies child porn charges after burglar finds indecent images

A former governor at the Kings School said indecent images of children found on computers that belong to him must have been put there by someone else, a court has heard.
Andrew Brown outside court EMN-160518-212009009Andrew Brown outside court EMN-160518-212009009
Andrew Brown outside court EMN-160518-212009009

Andrew Brown, (61) of Montague Road, Peterborough, denies a number of counts relating to the indecent images.

Peterborough Crown Court heard the images came to light after he was burgled.

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Thomas Brown, prosecuting, said: “On October 24 2015 Mr Brown and his wife went out at 10am, and when they came back at around 1pm, they found they had been burgled.

“They had £300 in cash taken, some old phones, and also a memory stick.

“They called the police, and at that stage no-one thought it was any more than a burglary.

“On October 28, a letter came through the letter box addressed to Mr Brown. It was a blackmail note. It contained three indecent images of children and a demand for £8,000 in cash - otherwise the person writing the note would expose Andrew Brown.”

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Thomas Brown said the note contained a phone number, and the number allowed police to trace the writer - Ryan Penfold, who has admitted the burglary, and the court was told he has served a prison sentence for it.

Thomas Brown said Mr Penfold told police he had stolen three memory sticks, and sold them on for £25. Shortly after money was exchanged, his ‘fence’ contacted him, and said ‘I do not want these, they contain child pornography, you can have them back.’

When Andrew Brown was questioned by police about the memory sticks, he said they were his, and he knew nothing about how the images ended up on the stick, suggesting the burglar put them on there.

Police then examined Andrew Brown’s desktop computer, laptop, the memory stick and a separate hard drive, with a number of images discovered. He said he did not know how the images had got there, but someone else must have put them on the devices.

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Andrew Brown denies three counts of possessing indecent images of children, three counts of making indecent images of children, two counts of possessing extreme pornographic images and one count of possessing a prohibited image of a child.

The trial continues.