Dean Davidson, a former teacher, has been jailed for 17 years after preying on schoolchildren.
Dean Davidson, of Brockwood Close, Ashington, preyed on children online and in person for his own sexual gratification from 2004 until 2020.
But the 38-year-old was arrested in October 2020 after police received intelligence from Instagram that he had shared an indecent image of a child via the app.
Specialist detectives from Northumbria Police’s Paedophile Online Investigation Team (POLIT) seized Davidson’s digital devices – uncovering a bank of disturbing images and videos. This led to uncovering further offline offending.
They discovered that Davidson used fake profiles under a number of different aliases, pretending to be both young boys and girls, to develop online relationships with children and deceive them into sharing photographs.
Inside story of how Birmingham sex workers helped bring serial rapist to justice
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Tributes paid to Dundee lawyer Anne Duffy, who brought intelligence, courage and good humour to her work
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