West Yorkshire Police officer sentenced for making indecent images of children

PC Alan Dudzinski, 20, of Leeds District, pleaded guilty at Leeds Magistrates Court on March 1 to three counts of making indecent images of children and one count of possession of extreme pornography.

He was arrested in May 2021 and has been suspended from duty since that time.

Detective Chief Superintendent Nicola Bryar, of West Yorkshire Police’s professional standards directorate, said: “There is a victim of a sexual offence behind every one of those images. As a police force, we are committed to safeguarding and protecting the vulnerable and we know that the sharing of such images only prolongs and exacerbates the abuse that victims suffer.

“This officer’s actions go against everything that we stand for as a police service. I hope at least that this court case demonstrates that we will investigate and take action against anyone who commits such offences.

“Following the conclusion of this court case, the misconduct investigation will now resume in relation to this officer.”

At an earlier hearing, Matthew Burdon, prosecuting, said 125 indecent images and videos of young girls and boys were discovered on his devices and police found evidence of “a large number of search terms indicating a sexual interest in children”.

Forty six of the images were category A – the most serious – and they depicted girls as young as six being abused. Officers found another 41 category B images, 34 at category C images, featuring victims as young as three, and four images depicting beasitality.

His barrister Bo-Eun Jung told the court today that Dudzinski is “genuinely remorseful for his actions” but a prison sentence “would not address the underlying causes of his offending behaviour”.

She then asked the judge to adopt proposals of the Probation Service and order Dudzinski to complete a rehabilitation programme, instead of sending him straight to prison.

“He has accepted that he will, as a result of this, lose his police career. He has already lost his good character and, as noted in the (pre-sentence), he has seriously, if not permanently, damaged his relationship with his family,” she said.

Ms Jung then said Dudzinski “may also have autism” and asked for the case to be adjourned so he could undergo an assessment, but the judge refused.

Judge Singh said an “appropriate punishment can be achieved without an immediate sentence”, as Dudzinski has no previous convictions and he poses a relatively low risk to the public.

He imposed a sentence of eight months imprisonment – suspended for two years – and a 10-year sexual harm prevention order.