A police officer has threatened to resign in protest after a paedophile was spared prison. The officer, a member of the Met Police child sexual abuse team, shook his head after Recorder Maryam Syed gave Jordan Cave, 28, a two-year suspended prison sentence. Instead he will have to carry out 200 hours of community service and sign the sex offenders’ register.
As the sentence was delivered in court, the officer put his head in his hands. Spotting his body language, Recorder Syed said: ‘[The officer] is shaking his head, but I do recognise the hard work done by [him] and his colleagues.’ The officer then left the court saying: ‘I will actually quit the police based on this.’
Cave was a former IT technician at The Latymer School in Edmonton, north London, when he sexually abused a 12-year-old boy. A 10-minute recording of the attack was found on one of Cave’s devices after police searched his home following suspicious activity on a Dropbox account in 2022. He had also written an account of the incident and other sexual fantasies about children.
He initially claimed he had been hacked, denying that he was sexually interested in children and told police there was ‘nothing to worry about’. In total, there were 4,000 indecent images, including more than 1,000 category A images. Among them were videos of boys aged between four and 11 who had been taped, handcuffed, and raped. The officer who walked out of court was a member of the team whose job it is to look at sexual abuse images and scan streams of attacks to identify victims and offenders.
Recorder Syed acknowledged that normally she would hand down a four-year prison sentence, but after hearing about Cave’s immaturity, autism and ADHD, she would suspend it. She told him: ‘This is not a lenient sentence. It’s a deliberately onerous, hard package, having read many expert reports, that will punish you and protect the public, dealing with the root cause of your offending. ‘If there’s any breach of this sentence in any way, the only place you are going to is prison… I’m giving you an opportunity to make amends.’
For his early guilty pleas, Cave received another third off, reducing his sentence to two years. For the Category A images, he received eight months concurrent, and no separate penalty for the other offences. Instead of jail, Cave must sign the sex offenders’ register and will be under supervision for 12 months. His sentence includes a four-month curfew, 200 hours of unpaid work, 20 days of rehabilitation activity, and 26 sessions on a ‘difficult’ sex offender programme. He was also handed a 10-year sexual harm prevention order and ordered to pay £800 in compensation to the victim.
As the sentence was delivered in court, the officer put his head in his hands. Spotting his body language, Recorder Syed said: ‘[The officer] is shaking his head, but I do recognise the hard work done by [him] and his colleagues.’ The officer then left the court saying: ‘I will actually quit the police based on this.’
Cave was a former IT technician at The Latymer School in Edmonton, north London, when he sexually abused a 12-year-old boy. A 10-minute recording of the attack was found on one of Cave’s devices after police searched his home following suspicious activity on a Dropbox account in 2022. He had also written an account of the incident and other sexual fantasies about children.
He initially claimed he had been hacked, denying that he was sexually interested in children and told police there was ‘nothing to worry about’. In total, there were 4,000 indecent images, including more than 1,000 category A images. Among them were videos of boys aged between four and 11 who had been taped, handcuffed, and raped. The officer who walked out of court was a member of the team whose job it is to look at sexual abuse images and scan streams of attacks to identify victims and offenders.
Recorder Syed acknowledged that normally she would hand down a four-year prison sentence, but after hearing about Cave’s immaturity, autism and ADHD, she would suspend it. She told him: ‘This is not a lenient sentence. It’s a deliberately onerous, hard package, having read many expert reports, that will punish you and protect the public, dealing with the root cause of your offending. ‘If there’s any breach of this sentence in any way, the only place you are going to is prison… I’m giving you an opportunity to make amends.’
For his early guilty pleas, Cave received another third off, reducing his sentence to two years. For the Category A images, he received eight months concurrent, and no separate penalty for the other offences. Instead of jail, Cave must sign the sex offenders’ register and will be under supervision for 12 months. His sentence includes a four-month curfew, 200 hours of unpaid work, 20 days of rehabilitation activity, and 26 sessions on a ‘difficult’ sex offender programme. He was also handed a 10-year sexual harm prevention order and ordered to pay £800 in compensation to the victim.
