Police chief who retired while under investigation for possessing indecent images of boys as young as eight is spared jail after judge said ‘shame’ of admitting his crimes was ‘significant punishment’

• Steven Sansbury’s home was searched in 2021 when he was a chief inspector 
• The 55-year-old  retired on his full pension before the case had gone to court 

A former police chief who retired while under investigation for possessing indecent images of children was spared jail on Monday after a judge said the ‘shame’ of admitting his crimes was the greatest punishment he could receive.

Officers from Lancashire Police searched the home of Steven Sansbury, who was then a chief inspector with the force, in 2021 and found ten explicit photos of boys as young as eight, a court heard.

He was suspended from his £62,000-a-year job but retired on his full pension before the case had gone to court or misconduct proceedings had been brought against him.

On Monday, the 55-year-old stood grim-faced in the dock at Manchester Crown Court as his barrister described his ‘humiliation’ at how his 30-year policing career had been ended by what his bosses branded the ‘abhorrent’ crimes.

But a judge accepted there was no evidence that Sansbury had been deliberately looking for images of children after hearing he had been searching for ‘twinks’ – pornographic pictures of adolescent-looking men.

Officers from Lancashire Police searched the home of Steven Sansbury (pictured) who was then a chief inspector with the force, in 2021 and found ten explicit photos of boys as young as eight, a court heard

Sansbury – who was once pictured posing with a fearsome-looking Game of Thrones-style axe during a crackdown on knife crime – refused to comment after leaving court with a 12-month community order.

He was also ordered to sign the sex offenders’ register for the next five years.

In 2018, Sansbury led a campaign to persuade youth gangs in Preston to hand over their knives, telling a local paper they ‘could end up with a criminal record and someone could end up with life-changing injuries or even dead’.

However when his detached home in Blackburn was searched as part of an unspecified and unrelated investigation in January 2021, a laptop and external hard drive were seized.

They were found to contain seven indecent images featuring children aged 13-15 classed as category B – the second most serious classification – and three showing children aged between eight and 15 which were classed as category C.

The images had been downloaded in 2009 and saved in a computer folder.

Interviewed about the images, he claimed he had been looking for homosexual pornographic images and had searched for ‘twinks’ – described by prosecutor Philip Barnes as ‘adult males with the appearance of young, hairless men’.

Sansbury was once pictured posing with a fearsome-looking Game of Thrones-style axe during a crackdown on knife crim

Sansbury was suspended, and retired last year before the case went to court

Sansbury was suspended, and retired last year before the case went to court.

He appeared in the dock on Monday after admitting two counts of making indecent images of children at a previous hearing.

His barrister, David Pojur, said losing his ‘hitherto good character’ had been a ‘sobering’ experience.

‘Mr Sansbury comes before the court humiliated, having been a senior police officer for three decades,’ he added.

‘The effect of losing his good character and moving from [being] a senior police officer to the dock is a salutary lesson.’

Imposing a community order with 80 hours of unpaid work, Judge Nicholas Dean KC, the Honorary Recorder of Manchester, told Sansbury he had ‘served, no doubt with some distinction, as a senior police officer’.

The judge said the reasons why Sansbury saved the images was ‘not now clear’, but accepted he was not someone who ‘consistently’ sought illicit photos.

‘The loss of your good character and the shame of your departure from the police force in these circumstances is plainly a significant punishment,’ he added.

Judge Dean rejected a prosecution application to impose a sexual harms prevention order, saying there was no evidence that Sansbury had downloaded further illegal images.

Sansbury appeared in the dock in Manchester Crown Court Monday after admitting two counts of making indecent images of children at a previous hearing.

However he ordered that Sansbury attend ten days of sessions with probation to address his offending.

Asked as he left court about his crimes and why he had retired before facing justice, Sansbury – his face obscured by a surgical mask – said: ‘No comment.’

Afterwards Temporary Detective Chief Inspector Eugene Swift, of Lancashire Police, said: ‘We know the public will understandably be as appalled as we are by this abhorrent offending, which is made more shocking by the fact it was committed by somebody in a position of trust.

‘I would like to reassure the public that Sansbury was suspended from duty when his offending first came to light, which was as a result of an investigation by our Professional Standards Department.

‘Where there is evidence of criminality, as was the case with Sansbury, we pursue prosecution.

‘Gross misconduct proceedings will take place in due course to establish what action would have been taken against Sansbury had he still been a serving police officer.’

Sansbury’s disgrace comes amid calls to clean up policing following a string of recent scandals, including the rape and murder of Sarah Everard by Wayne Couzens, a serving Met officer.

Home Office guidelines introduced in 2017 said that not allowing officers accused of misconduct to resign or retire while investigations are ongoing – thereby leaving them suspended on full pay for months or even years – had created an ‘unsatisfactory situation for the force and officer concerned’.

In 2021, 45 per cent of officers in England and Wales facing misconduct proceedings resigned or retired before the process concluded, an investigation by the Sunday Times revealed.

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