Man sentenced to 19 years in prison for child sex offences

John Bidmead a 65 year-old former lorry driver has been sentenced to a 19 year prison sentence for child sex offences in Exeter Crown court today.

Bidmead from Cullompton was found with over a million images and videos of child pornography on his computer.

Police began investigating Bidmead after Interpol alerted them that Bidmead had been downloading the images. A raid on his house caught Bidmead in the act of watching child pornography.

Officers at the Child Exploitation Unit forensically catalogued Bidmead’s collection of child pornography but had to stop due to the sheer number of downloaded images and videos.

Police catalogued over 600,000 images but estimate that the actual number was in excess of a million.

In the investigation it became apparent that some of the material had been filmed by Bidmead himself as he abused and raped young girls.

Four young girls where identified to have been sexually abused by Bidmead and at least one was filmed being raped.

In court Bidmead pleaded guilty to all charges and offered no defence for his crimes.

Following the sentencing, Detective Inspector Andrea Kingdon said: “This has been a very distressing and sensitive investigation, particularly for the victims of this abuse.

“It is yet another example of how Devon and Cornwall Police will robustly investigate such offences.

“There is no doubt that Bidmead is a predatory child sex offender who has committed a number of extremely serious sex offences against children.

“I must also pay credit to officers in the Force Child Exploitation Unit who undertook this investigation.”

The judge also praised the actions of the officers involved in the case.