Former NCA officer admits having hundreds of indecent images of children

A FORMER National Crime Agency (NCA) officer has admitted having hundreds of sickening indecent images of children and bestiality on electronic devices, including a work computer.

Adam Taylor, 40, pleaded guilty to making indecent images of children, possessing extreme images, and misconduct in a public office.

Taylor from Waltham Abbey was arrested by officers from the NCA's Anti-Corruption Unit in April 2022, after it was established that an IP address linked to his home address was accessing illegal content.

Taylor, who joined the NCA in 2014 and was working as an intelligence officer at the time, was immediately suspended.

During searches of his home address a large number of laptops, tablets, USBs, hard drives, DVDs, CDs and other electronic storage devices were found. They contained more than 700 indecent images of children, and another 200 images of extreme pornography or bestiality.

Some images were found on a computer Taylor had been given for work purposes.

He was later dismissed from the NCA for gross misconduct.

At a hearing at Southwark Crown Court today, June 12 2024, Taylor pleaded guilty to four counts relating to the images and two counts of misconduct in a public office. He was bailed until sentencing on August 2.

The misconduct in public office offence was that he wilfully misconducted himself by making indecent images of children on a work device between March 28 2019 and April 26 2022.

Taylor admitted having five extreme images, showing bestiuality , 391 category A images of children, which is the worst kind, and 322 across categories B and C.

NCA Director General (Operations) Rob Jones said: "The NCA is at the forefront of tackling online child abuse and it is vital that we identify and root out anybody within the agency involved in this or any other criminal activity.

"While shocked and saddened that an NCA officer could be convicted of such crimes, we recognise that the scale of the online child sexual abuse threat means we must remain vigilant and work proactively, as we did in this case, to identify any potential risk in the agency.

"Individuals like Taylor have no place in law enforcement. It was other NCA officers, working diligently and covertly to protect the public, who were responsible for bringing him to justice.

"Behind each of those images recovered from Taylor's devices was a vulnerable child who had been abused. We remain determined to pursue offenders like him wherever in society they operate, and to protect the victims of online child sexual abuse."