Former Grimsby special school IT manager jailed over indecent images of children

An IT manager from a special school in Grimsby who was caught with thousands of indecent images of children has been jailed.

Matthew Winder, who worked at Humberston Park Special School, was arrested after a specialist investigation by the National Crime Agency.

In March last year police attended at his address and initially arrested Winder's father and seized electronic devices.

But the 39-year-old later handed himself in and admitted he had been viewing and downloading images and videos of children for about 20 years.

There was no evidence any of the material involved children from the school.But at his sentencing at Grimsby Crown Court, Judge Peter Kelson QC told him said parents would be "rocked to their core" to have discovered a staff member had committed the offences.Prosecuting, Amber Hobson told the court Winder was "computer savvy" and had used a number of programmes to ensure devices were secure.

She said: "There was a vast quantity of images and videos of all all categories including the most extreme."There were around 6,000 images stored on the devices, she said.Mitigating Winder, Ian Haywood said the offences did not go "beyond image viewing".

"He has had no contact with children. He never touched any of the children," he said.Judge Kelson said: "Every parent is now going to be shuddering that he was working with children, children from the ages of two years to 19 years, but was busy accessing this extreme material."He added: "Parents and staff would have been shocked to their core that he was working there. More horrifying is that the probation report says he has a high risk of serious harm to children."Winder admitted distributing indecent images and was jailed for 12 months. He is banned communicating with children online and using encryption.