Thomas Jenkins (Image: Dyfed-Powys Police)
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A former junior doctor who was previously struck off the medical register for targeting a child online has been jailed for possessing and distributing child sexual abuse material.
Thomas Jenkins, 34, of Llys Cilsaig, Dafen, Llanelli, was sentenced to 30 months in prison at Swansea Crown Court after entering guilty pleas to making indecent images in Categories A and B, and to distributing an indecent image.
Background
Jenkins already had a conviction from 2017 at Manchester Crown Court for attempting to incite a child under 16 to engage in sexual activity. At the time he was employed as a junior doctor at Wrexham Maelor Hospital and had used the dating app Grindr to send sexually explicit messages and photographs to someone he believed was a 13-year-old boy.
His contact was in fact an undercover police officer. During their exchanges, Jenkins questioned what he thought was a schoolboy about his sex life and urged him to have sex without a condom because it was “more natural”. He also told the contact he “wanted to slap him about a bit”, and sent indecent images of himself.
For that offending he received a community order – a sentence Judge Paul Thomas KC described as “quite frankly astonishing”. Jenkins was subsequently struck off the medical register.
The arrest
The court heard from prosecuting barrister Matt Murphy that Dyfed-Powys Police were alerted to Jenkins’ online activities in January this year after receiving intelligence linking him to discussions about child sexual abuse and the sharing of indecent images.
Officers arrived at his Llanelli home at 5am on February 2, where he was arrested and a number of phones and tablet devices were seized. Jenkins responded “no comment” to every question put to him during interview.
Evidence
Forensic examination of the seized devices revealed a collection of child sexual abuse videos, including the most serious Category A material depicting the rape of toddlers. Investigators also established that Jenkins had been using the encrypted messaging platform Telegram to discuss child sexual abuse with other users, and had shared an indecent image with like-minded individuals.
Mr Murphy told the court the evidence demonstrated Jenkins had been “actively involved in a network which facilitated the sharing of indecent images online”.
Defence
Defence barrister Dan Griffiths told the court that Jenkins acknowledged his use of drugs and alcohol had driven him to act in “reckless” ways, ultimately “throwing away a promising career in medicine”. Mr Griffiths added that his client harboured no illusions about the outcome, describing him as “nothing if not entirely realistic” and accepting that mitigation could only influence the length of the custodial sentence he faced.
Sentencing
Judge Paul Thomas KC said the community order imposed in 2017 had clearly failed to deter Jenkins from reoffending, and described the defendant as “a committed and dangerous paedophile”.
He told the court the children and toddlers in the videos recovered from Jenkins’ devices were real youngsters somewhere in the world being subjected to rape and sexual abuse so that people like the defendant could gratify themselves.
Addressing Jenkins directly, the judge said: “We can all thank our lucky stars that you never qualified with your perverted sexual proclivities.”
With discounts applied for his guilty pleas, Jenkins was sentenced to 30 months in prison. He will serve 40 per cent of the sentence in custody before being released on licence to serve the remainder in the community. Jenkins was made a registered sex offender for life and made subject to a 15-year sexual harm prevention order.
