OFFENDER JACK BURGIN FROM HEANOR JAILED FOR CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE IMAGES

In February 2019, a 34-year-old man named Jack Burgin was sentenced to prison after being found with more than 1,000 indecent images of children. Burgin described his problem as "an addiction." His actions also led to a local community backlash after he took a nearly naked photograph of a girl, which was discovered among a collection of 1,224 images.

Details of the incident were shared during his appearance at Nottingham Crown Court, where Judge Timothy Spencer QC sentenced him to one year in jail. The judge took into account a statement from a victim affected by Burgin’s behavior, stating, "If it were not for people like you, who are prepared to download this imagery, the child abuse created would be nowhere near as rife as it is. These children can never recover from what has been done to them for you to look to derive this perverted pleasure."

The judge also noted that Burgin’s particular interest was in very young girls, as young as five or six, emphasizing that "the age of the children is highly relevant and cannot be overlooked."

Prosecutor Rebecca Coleman explained that the police discovered the images after Burgin fell asleep at his home on Bridge Street in Heanor on January 1 of the previous year. When confronted, Burgin claimed that he viewed pornography "out of curiosity" and asserted, "I am not like that. I have deleted it." However, police experts examining his phone found 318 items classified in the worst category, including 33 videos.