A PAEDOPHILE has been brought to justice after a neighbour mistakenly opened a letter to him that referred to sexual acts.
John Howard Baker, 66, of Addiscombe, has been jailed for two years after police found hundreds of indecent images of children at his Addiscombe home.
Baker came to the attention of police in June when a neighbour contacted police after inadvertently opening a letter addressed to him that had been mistakenly delivered to her address.
The letter contained references to sexual acts with adults as well as references to children.
After further checks on Baker, officers raided his home on July 24 and seized computers, hard drives, USB sticks, photographs and photographic equipment.
Hundreds of indecent images of children were found on the hard drives and memory sticks.
On October 9 Baker was charged with 12 counts of making, possessing and distributing indecent images of children.
He was sentenced to two years' imprisonment at Croydon Crown Court on Monday after pleading guilty and will be placed on the sex offenders' register for life.
Detective Sergeant Hayley Stanesby, from Croydon CID, said:
"This case was solved due to some excellent work by the Addiscombe Safer Neighbourhood Team, working in conjunction with my Jigsaw Team that deals with and manages registered sex offenders.
"Baker was not known to us before this case was brought to light and did not use the internet to communicate or send and receive images, which can make it slightly harder to identify and detect what he was doing.
"But thanks to the excellent work of PC Cranshaw of the Addiscombe SNT and DC George Sinclair from my team, a dangerous sex offender has been identified and put behind bars and he will also be subject to all the constraints and checks upon his release under the sex offenders register."
