Soham officer gets six months for child porn

A former police officer involved in the Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman murder inquiries in Soham was jailed for six months yesterday for possessing hundreds of pornographic pictures of children.

Anthony Goodridge, 34, of Ely, Cambridgeshire, was sentenced at Ipswich Crown Court after he admitted having 330 indecent images. Goodridge, with eight years' service, and who worked as an exhibit officer during the investigation into the murders of the two 10-year-old girls in August last year, was dismissed by Cambridgeshire police this month.

Married, and with two children, he had said pressures of work and raising a family drove him to viewing the photographs, some showing assaults on children, which were found on his home computer.

Judge Devaux said Goodridge would serve half of the six-month term, with the remainder suspended.