Locations
Charles Street, Arnold, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, NG5
Description
A child rapist’s despicable offending was exposed when officers went through his phone.
Carl Andrews put himself on the police’s radar after uploading indecent images of children online.
When confronted with this, Andrews admitted to owning the images, but denied doing anything else.
Not buying this, officers reviewed all his devices and discovered videos of him sexually abusing young children.
Both the victims – a boy and a girl – are believed to have been targeted during 2022 by Andrews in Nottinghamshire.
Distinctive tattoos on Andrews’ hands that were visible in the videos were used by police to link him to those crimes.
More than 1,400 indecent photos and videos of children were also discovered on the sexual predator’s phone and other devices.
He would go on to be charged with a range of child sex offences.
This included rape, inciting someone to engage in sexual activity, assault by touching and three counts of making indecent images of children.
Faced with the damning evidence against him, Andrews elected to plead guilty to the six separate counts on 18 July this year.
He returned to Nottingham Crown Court to be sentenced on Wednesday (3 September).
Andrews, of Charles Street, Arnold, was handed an extended sentence of 13 years in jail.
He was also put on the sex offenders’ register for life, made the subject of a sexual harm prevention order and issued with a restraining order banning him from ever contacting his victims.
PC Laurenie Haynes, of Nottinghamshire Police’s Child Abuse Investigation Unit, said:
“The content we found on Carl Andrews’ devices was disgraceful and vile.
“Amongst the more than 1,400 indecent images of children were videos of Andrews himself sexually abusing and in one case raping young children.
“There are truly no words to describe how much of a heinous crime that is.
“We were able to prove it was him in the videos because of distinctive tattoos on him that were clearly visible in the clips.
“Thankfully, the evidence we gathered was sufficient to pressurise Andrews to admit what he’d done, so his victims and their families didn’t have to sit through a trial.
“Andrews is a despicable individual who belongs behind bars, so we’re pleased to see he’s now been jailed.
“Despite this, we believe there could be other victims out there, who may have been targeted by Andrews but haven’t felt able to report it yet.
“To them, we’d say please come forward. It doesn’t matter if it happened years and years ago, we will listen to you and investigate further.”