Teaching assistant found with more than 21,000 child porn images is jailed for eight years

Syd Beg, a 54 year old teaching assistant from Glasgow is sentenced to jail for downloading child porn. He has been downloading child porn for the last ten years and in addition to that he admitted he had used lewd and indecent behaviour to a four year old girl. He will be in jail for 7 years and ten months. After his release he will be supervised for five years.

Beg was snared as part of operation Alba. That is an operation throughout Scotland to find child abusers. Alba was started in October last year to be more pro-active in finding child abusers.

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/2010/07/05/teaching-assistant-found-with-more-than-21-000-child-porn-images-is-jailed-for-eight-years-86908-22384232/

My reaction

Parents put their trust in teachers and other people that take care of their children. It is terrible that that trust is betrayed sometimes. Children are helpless and they need to be protected against everyone that wants to harm them. I find an eight year sentence not too long, I even think that the five years of supervision is too short. Child abusers turn out to be recidivists very often, that is why I think released child abusers have to be supervised for the rest of their lives. I believe some people can change, but the safety of children is at stake and that should not be the case.