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Police chief jailed over child porn
Last updated at 00:00am on 07.12.04A top-ranking police officer was jailed for four months today for downloading child pornography from the internet.
David Bruce, 44, a chief superintendent in the British Transport Police, pleaded guilty to 16 specimen charges of making or possessing indecent images of children.
Milton Keynes Magistrates' Court was told Bruce had been tipped to go on to become a Chief Constable before he was arrested as part of the FBI-led Operation Ore crackdown on child pornography.
Officers found hundreds of indecent images on his computer when they raided his home in Milton Keynes in July.
Many of the images were graded at level five - the most serious in terms of the explicit nature of the images.
The court heard Bruce has since resigned from his £60,000-a-year job and is currently being divorced by his wife.
Sentencing him today, Judge Brian Loosley said: "People like you create a market, and it is a very lucrative market, and people in other countries form the intent to satisfy that market and they subject children to quite terrible abuse."
Ian Lewis, in mitigation, said Bruce had suffered depression, alcoholism and impotence over the last decade and had used increasingly explicit internet sites to create sexual interest.
Mr Lewis said: "Since these matters came up his whole life has come tumbling down.
