SOUTHEND PAEDOPHILE GRAHAM DARTNELL JAILED FOR TENS OF THOUSANDS OF CHILD ABUSE IMAGES
A SERIAL paedophile from Southend has been jailed after he was caught with tens of thousands of child abuse images.Basildon Crown Court heard convicted child abuser Graham Dartnell, 67, was “obsessed” with primary school aged girls.
When Essex Police showed up for an unannounced spot check in September 2025, he said he wasn’t dressed and asked for some privacy to put some clothes on.
But he only partially closed the door, so an officer saw him unplugging and moving a laptop.
He also noticed Dartnell trying to conceal a USB memory stick.
The devices were seized and analysed and found to contain 60,000 indecent images – of which 32,000 were unique – primarily of topless girls aged between five and seven.
“The defendant’s internet search history confirmed a determined searching for this type of material that is seen in the images, with a clear obsession with pre-teens and what their developing breasts look like,” said prosecutor Hollie Davies.
When police arrived to arrest him in January after the analysis turned up the images, officers found another laptop hidden inside a sofa cushion.
But at the time of his sentence, that second laptop was believed to still be in a queue awaiting analysis, said Mrs Davies.
Dartnell pleaded guilty to making indecent images of a child, breaching a Sexual Harm Prevention Order (SHPO) and failing to comply with sex offenders register notification requirements.
The court heard Dartell was first cautioned for making indecent images in 2006.
There followed two convictions for breaching notification requirements and a further conviction in 2011 for making indecent images.
In 2016 – whilst living in Milton Keynes – he racked up further convictions for making, distributing and conspiring to distribute indecent images.
He was also convicted of sexually abusing a child under the age of 13.
Judge Samantha Cohen told him on Thursday: “You find yourself, yet again, in custody as a result of your obsessive sexual interest in female children.” She sentenced him to six months – the maximum available – for possessing Category C indecent images, plus 16 months consecutive for the breaches of his SHPO.
The total sentence was therefore 22 months.
