Portsmouth sports coach jailed for filming boys in showers

Terry Neale shared the images with an Australian paedophile

Terry Neale filmed pupils getting changed at swimming pools
Author: Ben MitchellPublished 7th Feb 2024

A former sports coach from Portsmouth who supplied videos of naked swimming pupils to an Australian paedophile has been jailed for three years and six months.

Terry Neale, 55, of North End, was sentenced at Winchester Crown Court after pleading guilty to voyeurism and charges of possessing and making indecent images of children.

One count of arranging/facilitating the sexual exploitation of a child under 13 and two counts of possessing extreme pornographic images will lie on file.

As well as the prison sentence, Neale was also given an indefinite Sexual Harm Prevention Order and placed on the Sex Offenders Register for life.

A National Crime Agency (NCA) spokesman said that Neale was tracked down and arrested by its officers in January 2021 after being contacted by the Australian Federal Police (AFP), who recovered the videos that he had recorded and shared.

The spokesman said: "Neale had sent the videos to Stephen Porter, who was arrested by the AFP in June 2020 and later jailed for 20 years for child sexual exploitation offences.

"The pair had known each other for more than 20 years and met up in Australia when Porter was coaching Australian rules football youth players.

"AFP officers recovered two videos from Porter taken by Neale in 2013 of a young boy getting dressed after bathing at his house. Neale can be seen speaking with the child and providing towels.

"Other videos shared by Neale showed pupils getting changed at swimming pools in the Portsmouth area.

"In one video, Neale appears to place a bag on a bench and adjusts a hidden camera. He's then seen walking around the changing room and talking to naked boys."

The spokesman said that Neale was employed by a swimming school at the time and also worked as a local amateur youth football coach for various teams.

In victim impact statements read to the court, one parent wrote: "All our lives changed the day we found out Terry Neale had chosen to dehumanise our beautiful 12-year-old son and steal his childhood innocence.

"He felt somehow what occurred was in some way his fault. He questions himself and his belief in his ability to judge people, trust people, read people and, sadly too, judge danger."

A further victim said: "The knowledge that I was videoed without my permission at such a young age has left me feeling as though a part of myself I never knew is missing."

Another said: "It is the thought that after someone doing such a thing how could they possibly ever be allowed to step foot out of prison? I fail to see where it stops - if someone can be depraved enough to hide a camera in a changing room full of children, what will he do next?"

NCA Operations Manager Danielle Pownall said: "Terry Neale held a position of trust in the community but abused it by taking advantage of children on his watch.

"He did so for his own sexual gratification, and that of a fellow paedophile on the other side of the world."

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