Shaw has been jailed for two years after discovery of "one of the largest hauls of child sexual abuse images the NCA has seen."

Shaw was arrested in Maidstone, Kent, in February 2019 and the NCA took away sixteen of electronic devices which they examined. Shaw's licence to practice medicine expired in 2013 after only 8 years as a General Practitioner.

Shaw admitted possessing indecent images of children and said that he knew he was "a criminal" and a "bad person" and that he had been expecting a visit from law enforcement for some time. He said that the root cause of his malfeasance was a sexual attraction to pre-pubescent girls and that if he did not view the pornography, he became depressed. He further said that it was the recognition of this condition that led to him leaving the medical profession.

Shaw was charged with three sample counts of making and possessing indecent images. To be clear, this does not mean that he originated the pornography: the offence is satisfied by downloading (and therefore duplicating) images either from e-mails or from websites or other sources on the internet.

It was the use of the internet that led to his arrest: although he "used anonymisation techniques" during his sessions on the peer-to-peer file-sharing network Freenet, once such a prolific user was identified, the NCA was able to trace him.

The NCA does not say that it found evidence that he ever engaged, in any way, with the subjects of the images. However, a spokesman said "Not only did Shaw abuse his position of trust, he helped fuel the sickening trade in child sexual abuse images by downloading this material, which re-victimises every child. Behind these images are vulnerable children being exploited just to satisfy pædophiles."

Online trading of both images and videos is a serious problem. The distribution and payment for such material is at the heart of much violence and sexual abuse against children and with the advent of easy payment systems and ever-faster mobile communications, the scope for a dramatic increase in the available population of children is a major threat.

Image courtesy: UK National Crime Agency