Rapist police officer avoids return to jail after being exposed as paedophile

He claimed he looked at the images to help with PTSD

Richard Hale, 41, escaped a second prison sentence after claiming he looked at indecent images of children to help him with post-traumatic stress.

He was handed a seven year jail sentence in 2016 after being arrested for raping a woman in Carterton in 2001.

On Thursday (April 27), Oxford Crown Court heard that Hale was released from prison on licence in April 2020, within weeks of the first national lockdown.

The court heard that as a former roads policing officer who had seen crashes on a "regular basis", Hale suffered from "significant post-traumatic stress disorder".

He experienced nightmares, headaches and "intrusive thoughts."

It was suggested that this was one of the reasons why he was looking at indecent images of children.

A small number of child sex abuse images in categories A to C were found on his digital devices together with prohibited images of children and extreme pornography.

Sentencing, Judge Pringle told Hale: “You say that you started to access images because it would deal with the pain you felt from some of the trauma you underwent when you were serving as a police officer.

“I frankly find that explanation difficult but I’ve read a report about you; a trauma therapy report.

"You went and got trauma therapy off your own back; at least that says something about you.”

He said: “Make no bones about it, by accessing these images you create a market and that market then takes young children and has them grotesquely abused for your pleasure.

“I hope that you remember that if you are ever tempted to look at such images again.”

Hale, of Peel Place, Carterton, had earlier pleaded guilty at the magistrates’ court to possession of indecent and prohibited images of children and possession of extreme pornography.

The judge imposed 16 months’ imprisonment suspended for two years.

Hale must also do 120 hours of unpaid work and attend a series of sex offender rehabilitation programmes.

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