'Dark side' of former Gedling councillor who had over 600 indecent images of children

Desmond Gibbons was first elected as a Labour member of Gedling Borough Council in 2019

A former Gedling councillor with a "dark and sinister" side will spend nearly two years in prison after more than 600 indecent images of children were found on his devices. Desmond Gibbons, 67, of Station Road in Ollerton, was found to have 686 images on his mobile phone and laptop in total.

The vast majority were indecent images of children, some as young as three, but there were also two images depicting bestiality on a dog. Gibbons, wearing a black suit with a white shirt and dark blue tie, was sentenced to 21 months in prison at a Nottingham Crown Court hearing on Friday (October 18).

Gibbons was previously a Labour member of Gedling Borough Council from 2019, representing the Bestwood St Albans ward. Gibbons was re-elected at the May 2023 local elections, before resigning from the Labour Party in October 2023 over its stance on Gaza.

Gibbons continued to sit as an independent councillor until confirming in August 2024 that he had stood down for reasons of ill health. Friday's court hearing heard that police first received intelligence in May 2023 that indecent images of children had been uploaded to the internet from a Skype account linked to Gibbons.

Officers attended Gibbons' home on April 29 this year and arrested him, before then seizing his Samsung mobile phone and Toshiba laptop. Rawaid Javed, prosecuting, said at Friday's hearing: "The defendant told the police he knew what they were there for and what they were talking about and pointed them towards his phone.

"Varying categories of indecent images of children were found, as well as some bestiality images." Mr Javed told the hearing that 115 indecent images of children of the worst possible category were found on Gibbons' devices, with some children as young as four.

Mr Javed also said there were 193 Category B images and 376 Category C images, with children as young as three shown in both cases. Luc Chignell, mitigating, told Friday's hearing that as well as his time on Gedling Borough Council, Gibbons had worked for many years at Royal Mail, including 15 years as a trade union representative.

Gibbons had also represented his country in masters athletics, which is athletics for those over the age of 35. Mr Chignell said: "The rest of his life will be very different from the 67 years before it, and that is entirely his fault." Mr Chignell said that in trying to understand what he had done, Gibbons described his offending as being done in a "fantasy" part of his life where he felt as though he was "in a bubble."

Mr Chignell said: "It's very difficult to understand... but what you see is somebody who is committed to trying to realise why he's done this, trying to realise why he's sick. There is something wrong with him and he wants to understand what that is. Why is it that he got sexual gratification from what he did?"

The five offences, which Gibbons had pleaded guilty to at a Nottingham Magistrates' Court hearing on August 23, 2024, were all carried out between June 2022 and April 2024. It means Gibbons' offending was done while he remained a Gedling councillor in receipt of taxpayer money.

It also means that by the time Gibbons stood for re-election in May 2023, much of his offending had already begun. Gibbons' wife has now left him and a by-election held in September saw him being replaced by a Conservative on Gedling Borough Council.

Addressing Gibbons, who was sat in the dock with his head bowed for most of the hearing, Recorder Balraj Bhattia KC said: "67 years of age and a man of hitherto good character. I accept that you worked hard and worked responsibly, but there's another side to you. A dark side which was kept from your family and kept from anyone else and everyone else that you knew.

"That was both dark, sinister, sexualised and above all criminal." Gibbons was given an immediate 21-month prison sentence and was placed on the sex offenders register for 10 years.