Teacher sentenced over thousands of child abuse images

A Swansea teacher has been sentenced after police discovered he had amassed thousands of indecent images of children, including photographs that had never been seen before by UK law enforcement agencies.

Benjamin Gray, 57, of Eastbourne Grove, Sketty, appeared at Swansea Crown Court after officers from South Wales Police’s online investigation team executed a search warrant at his home on 2 October last year.

The court heard that 4,383 images were found across a Samsung phone, a hard drive, and an Apple Mac laptop. Of these, 368 were Category A—showing the most extreme kinds of sexual abuse—405 were Category B, and 3,610 were Category C. Some of the Category A images involved girls as young as two being raped by men.

Prosecutor Dean Pulling told the court that 1,280 of the images were “visually unique” meaning they were not images previously known to law enforcement agencies or pre-categorised on the national child abuse images database.

The examination of Gray’s devices showed he had been visiting websites hosting child sexual abuse material with titles such as “barely legal” and “sexy schoolgirl” since as far back as 2013.

At the time of the offences and his arrest, Gray was a teacher at Penyrheol Comprehensive School in Swansea. Benjamin Charles Deuchars Gray pleaded guilty to three counts of making—that is possessing—indecent photographs of children of Categories A, B and C. He has no previous convictions.

With a discount for his guilty plea, Gray was sentenced to 12 months in prison suspended for 18 months and ordered to complete a rehabilitation course. He will be a registered sex offender for the next 10 years and will be subject to a sexual offences prevention order for the same length of time.

A spokesman for Penyrheol Comprehensive School said Mr Gray was suspended immediately the offences were known about, and has not been in school since. He added that the offences do not relate to any pupil past or present at the school.

According to the Education Workforce Wales website, since 20 December 2024, he is currently ineligible for registration and subject to an ‘interim suspension order’.