Detectives from North Yorkshire Police’s Online Abuse & Exploitation Team have brought a Harrogate child sex offender to justice.
Daniel John Gresham, aged 34, was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment at York Crown Court today (Friday 17 July 2020).
He was also made subject to a 15-year Sexual Harm Prevention Order and placed on the sex offenders’ register.
Gresham had earlier pleaded guilty to sexual touching a girl aged under 13, making Category C indecent images and distributing Category C indecent images of the same girl.
The Online Abuse & Exploitation Team were able to use their expertise to identify Gresham as the person responsible for making indecent images of children.
He was arrested on 4 March 2020 and a search warrant was carried out at his home address.
His electronic devices were seized and analysed by the force’s Digital Forensics Unit.
The detectives were able to prove that he had been sexually abusing the girl in the images he had taken between October 2013 and October 2015, and that he had shared the same images online in February 2020.
Gresham was charged with the offences on 7 March 2020 and he had been remanded in custody ahead of sentencing due to his risk of reoffending.
Detective Sergeant Lee Allenby, of the Online Abuse & Exploitation Team, said:
Despite the emerging operational difficulties posed by the coronavirus during this time, we were able to progress the investigation and secure charges against Daniel Gresham.
More importantly, we were able to identify and safeguard a young victim who had been keeping her abuse a secret for many years. I have nothing but admiration for her bravery in supporting the investigation and I hope the outcome at court will help her to put this terrible experience behind her.
The officer in the case, DC Lucy Armstrong, and the wider investigation team did an excellent job to achieve this result.
As for Gresham, he is clearly a dangerous individual who is now facing up to the consequences of his depraved actions.
We will not rest until such offenders are arrested, convicted and put behind bars where they can do the least amount of harm to vulnerable victims and to society as a whole.
