Former Derbyshire Police Officer Sentenced for Child Sex Crimes

James Land, a former Derbyshire police community support officer, has been sentenced to 27 months in prison for secretly filming children as young as three naked in the changing rooms of a local swimming pool.

The 43-year-old, who worked in the cyber crime unit at Derbyshire police headquarters, was also found to have been collecting child abuse films and images for almost 20 years. He had been hiding knickers belonging to girls as young as 13 under his bed.

Land's crimes were discovered when police raided his home in May 2020, finding a number of electronic devices including his police laptop. On these devices, they discovered a video of Land secretly filming children in the changing rooms of Queen's Park Leisure Centre in Chesterfield. The video, which was four minutes and 17 seconds long, was dated from 2015.

Police were able to identify five of the children in the video, but two remain unidentified. Land also secretly videoed an adult woman engaged in sexual activity without her consent.

Judge Nirmal Shant QC, sentencing Land, said: "An aggravating feature was that you were carrying out this (indecent images) activity for 19 years. And it is quite plain you specifically targeted very young children (with the filming). You used your presence (in the changing rooms) to record young children and that has caused a great deal of distress for the families."

Land pleaded guilty to counts of voyeurism and possessing 365 indecent images of the most serious category A, 262 category B, and 686 category C. He also pleaded guilty to possession of 179 prohibited images of children.

In addition to the jail term, Land was handed a 10-year sexual harm prevention order and ordered to be on the sex offender register for 10 years. He has since quit his role at the police force.