L Walker 
A serial pedophile from Romford has been sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison.
Mark Dale, 45, of Market Place, downloaded more than 14,000 indecent images and videos of children on the dark web.
His laptop was linked to a known pedophile forum following an investigation by the National Crime Agency (NCA) and he was arrested in July 2020.
Investigators discovered he frequented chat rooms such as ‘tweenfanisland’ and searched for abuse material online using The Onion Router (TOR) software.
When they searched his laptop and tablet they found 14,222 indecent images and videos of children which ranged from category A, the most serious, to category C.
Dale was previously convicted for similar offences in 2011 and 2019 and was bound to strict rules under a Sexual Harm Prevention Order (SHPO). These included registering any digital devices with the Metropolitan Police Service.
The 45-year-old pleaded guilty to six counts of making indecent images of children and breaching his SHPO at Barkingside Magistrates’ Court in February 2021.
He was sentenced to 30 months imprisonment for breaching his SHPO and 12 months for the new image offences at Snaresbrook Crown Court yesterday. Both sentences are to be served concurrently.
NCA Operations Manager Martin Ludlow said: “Despite being a convicted child sex offender, Dale continued to seek out abuse images in the belief that using the dark web gave him anonymity.
“We must not forget that for every image or video he downloaded, a child was being exploited somewhere.”
