Devon man had hundreds of child sex abuse images on his laptop and phone

A man from Devon who saved hundreds of child sex abuse images to his electronic devices has been jailed. Lee Smith from Dawlish, had more than 400 of the disgusting images and videos on phones, a laptop and cloud storage accounts, including instances of the worst category of child sexual abuse.

The 47-year-old was investigated by the National Crime Agency in 2023, after a cloud storage company overseas reported that the abusive material had been found on four accounts connected with a UK user. The accounts appeared to belong to Smith, who had previously been convicted of indecent image offences in 2006 and had been handed a suspended sentence at the time.

During the investigation, Smith was stopped and questioned by Border Force officers at Heathrow Airport after arriving on a flight from Uganda on 8 June 2023. Smith said he had made 29 trips to Uganda, where he claimed he was paying the school fees of a number of Ugandan children.

The information was given to the NCA and, on June 17, Smith was arrested while attempting to leave the country on a flight to Denmark. NCA officers seized a mobile phone on which was an indecent video of children which he filmed during a trip to Uganda.

He was charged on June 18 and remanded in custody. While awaiting trial, NCA officers worked with Devon and Cornwall Police to search Smith's two cars, 11 mobile phone, a laptop and a number of storage devices such as hard drives, USBs and micro SD cards.

Digital forensic officers scoured through thousands of files stored on the devices, recovering hundreds more images of child abuse in the process. As a result, Smith was charged with further offences.

He initially denied knowledge of the material and he stated that the devices and cloud accounts did not belong to him. However, when faced with the NCA’s overwhelming evidence of his crimes, Smith was sentenced to four years’ imprisonment on Tuesday, October 22.

He was also issued with a 10-year Sexual Harm Prevention Order, which curtails his activities online and in the real world. He has been placed on the sex offenders register for life.

NCA Senior Investigating Officer Daniel Waywell , said: “Smith downloaded hundreds of images depicting just as many children being sexually abused. Every child in those images has suffered for the gratification of Smith and others like him.

“The cloud storage provider showed great responsibility in reporting their suspicions about the user accounts. Their action helped us stop Smith continuing to create a demand for child sexual abuse content and creating his own.

“The NCA is committed to working with partners worldwide to protect children, be that by stopping the abusers or those seeking the abusive content.”