Probation manager child porn shame

May 17 2008 by Neil Mckay, The Journal

A FORMER probation boss who helped set up a £10m Home Office register of sex offenders was in jail last night after sending thousands of pornographic images of children to fellow perverts.

Investigators also came across graphic racist and sadistic internet chat room fantasies told by Vincent Barron to a complete stranger using the chat-room pseudonym Doggingcp 12004.

Yesterday Judge Richard Lowden, sentencing Barron, 50, of Kirk Rise, Frosterley, County Durham, to 33 months’ imprisonment at Durham Crown Court, told the former £45,000-a-year assistant chief of Northumbria Probation Service: “Your fall from grace has been profound.”

The judge added: “The conversations in these chat rooms are a serious feature of your offending. Even if you did not intend to carry out these vile fantasies, you were encouraging strangers to share them and you were condoning that sort of behaviour.”

Twice-married Barron was on secondment to the Home Office from Northumbria Probation Service, and was helping to establish a £10m database of violent sex offenders at the time of his arrest in 2005.

The Violent and Sex Offender Register known as ViSOR, was a national computer database containing details of both sex offenders and violent criminals who may pose a serious risk to the public.

He spent his weekdays living and working in London, but at weekends returned to Frosterley from where he distributed 1,300 separate graphic images of child abuse to 21 different internet addresses from his home computer.

Simon Reevell, prosecuting, said Barron sent out 3,800 images in total, including two rated Category 5 – the most serious category – which involved sadism or bestiality with a child.

A total of 758 images were Category 4 – the second most serious – and included images of naked men sexually abusing girls aged seven, eight and nine.

The majority of the images – 2,798 – were of the least serious type, Category 1 – which showed children in “erotic poses”.

He came to the attention of Durham Police after he was arrested by officers in Scotland, where he was sending indecent images of children to somebody called “Big Gordy from Kirkcaldy.”

In January last year he was jailed for 14 months by a Scottish court for emailing 10 images of youngsters aged between five and 12 to “Big Gordy.”

After three months he was released following a successful appeal.

But Durham Police had taken possession of his computer images from their Scottish counterparts, and charged him with 21 counts of distributing indecent images of children to fellow British perverts, and one of possessing indecent images. He admitted all charges earlier this year.

The judge told Barron he would have sentenced him to 36 months, but took into account the three months he had served in prison in Scotland before his successful appeal.

He added: “Each image represents a child being often horribly sexually abused. Any activity which feeds into or encourages this is abhorrent.”

Barron was also placed on the Sex Offender’s Register and banned from working with children for life.

Robin Patton, representing Barron, said his client was under considerable stress at work and drinking “substantial amounts of alcohol” at the time of his offending.

Worst case

AFTER the hearing Detective Constable Yvonne Dutson, who investigated Barron’s sick images and who was in court to hear him being sentenced, said: "I am pleased he has been jailed. Considering his position in authority, and the vile chat-room fantasies, on top of the indecent images, this is the worst case of its kind I have come across."

Last night Northumbria Probation Service issued the following statement: "Northumbria Probation Board is appalled to learn that a former employee is guilty of such serious and disturbing offences. The Board deplores his behaviour and the impact it has had on victims and their families.

"Mr Barron had been on secondment to the National Probation Service at the Home Office in London for five years. He was suspended in December 2005 and later dismissed as a result of separate charges brought by Fife Police."

Barron had previously worked as a probation officer in Newcastle.