A 22-year-old man, who pleaded guilty to the rape of a child, has been jailed for 12 years after an international investigation involving the FBI, Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire Police.
Joshua Hibbett, of Oakington Close, Arnold, Nottingham, was sentenced at Nottingham Crown Court on Thursday, October 24.
Hibbett pleaded guilty to a total of 14 charges. The charges included the rape of a child and taking, making, possession and distribution of indecent images of children.
FBI investigation
Nottinghamshire Police officers were first made aware of Hibbett following an FBI investigation into a Russian file sharing website used to exchange indecent images of children.
The FBI obtained a federal search and seizure warrant in February 2018 to trace a particular user, who was encouraging other users to trade indecent images of children. He was subsequently found to reside in the United States.
Multiple emails associated with activity on the website were found. The username of ‘Joshua Hibbett’ was linked with two email addresses that had corresponded with the suspect from the United States.
The email address with that username was linked to a person who lived in the United Kingdom.
A collaborative investigation from Lincolnshire Police and Nottinghamshire Police found Hibbett to be living in Nottingham.
House raid and arrest
Nottinghamshire Police attended a property in Oakington Close in Nottingham on Wednesday, December 19, 2018.
Hibbett was interviewed and arrested on suspicion of the making and distribution of indecent images of children.
During the search of the property, a number of digital storage media devices were seized including a mobile phone and a laptop. Both were subsequently found to contain evidence relating to Hibbett’s offending.
Most of the images appeared to have been downloaded from the Russian file sharing website. The images had been placed into a folder called “Secret” found in Hibbett’s gaming folder.
He was also found to have created some of the images himself and shared them with the website.
Andrew Taylor, Detective Constable at Nottinghamshire Police, said: “This has been a disturbing, shocking case and I am proud of the hard work of officers in the Paedophile Online Investigation Team based within Nottinghamshire Police as well as the FBI to bring Hibbett to justice.
“I’d also like to praise the young survivor for their bravery and courage in coming forward. Their strength throughout this case has been nothing short of incredible.”
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A 38-year-old man from a North Lincolnshire village charged with murder will face an eight-day trial later this year.
Emergency services were called at 4.23am on Saturday, July 2 to reports that a man was seriously injured on South Parade in central Doncaster.
The 28-year-old victim was taken to hospital but was sadly pronounced dead a short time later.
A post-mortem examination found that he died of injuries to his head, chest and abdomen.
Formal identification of the victim is yet to take place, South Yorkshire Police said earlier this week.
Steven Ling, 38, of Park Drain, Westwoodside in North Lincolnshire, has been charged with murder and was remanded in custody to appear at Doncaster Magistrates Court on Monday, July 4.
Ling later appeared at Sheffield Crown Court on Tuesday, July 5 for a plea and trial preparation hearing.
No pleas were entered during the hearing, but an eight-day trial was set for November 28, 2022. Ling has now been remanded into custody until the next hearing.
The Lincolnite went on a ride-along with a Lincolnshire Police officer from the force’s Roads Policing Unit (RPU), which aims to disrupt criminals’ use of the roads and reduce the number of serious and fatal accidents.
The team will support the county response including local policing, neighbourhood policing and criminal investigation too.
Operations first began in Grantham in January this year and started in Louth earlier this week with a sergeant and nine PCs based in both locations.
The Lincolnite went out on a ride-along with PC Rich Precious from Lincolnshire Police’s Roads Policing Unit. | Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite
PC Rich Precious has been a police officer for 22 years after joining the force in 2000 and he recently rejoined the Roads Policing Unit, working out of Louth.
PC Precious, who also previously worked as a family liaison officer for road deaths for 16 years, took The Lincolnite out in his police car to the A1 up to Colsteworth and then back to Grantham. He described that particular area as “one of the main arterial routes that goes through Lincolnshire”.
PC Rich Precious driving down the A1 up to Colsterworth. | Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite
Speaking about the new Roads Policing Unit, he said: “It’s intelligence led policing, it’s targeted policing in areas that have been underrepresented in terms of police presence, on the roads certainly, over a number of years.
“We’re hoping that the development of this unit will help address that balance, and look towards using the ANPR system to prevent criminals’ use of the road, and to identify key areas or routes where there’s a high percentage of people killed or seriously injured on the road, what we commonly refer to as KSI.
PC Precious is helping to keep the roads safer in Lincolnshire. | Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite
When asked if he thinks the new team will help reduce the number of serious and fatal accidents in the county, he added: “That’s what the the unit designed for. Sadly, in Lincolnshire our road network does seem to incur a number of those KSI accidents year on year, and we need to reduce that.
“I’ve worked additionally in my roles as a family liaison officer on road death for 16 years, so I’ve seen first hand the impact that road death has on families and victims families.
“I know it’s important that we try and reduce those because, it’s very sad to see how a fatal road traffic collision can affect a family and the victims of that family.”
Marc Gee, Inspector for Lincolnshire Police’s Roads Policing Unit. | Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite
Marc Gee, Inspector for the Roads Policing Unit, told The Lincolnite: “Every day there will be officers on duty from both teams and they’ll cover the whole county or the county’s roads.
“Eventually, we’ll have nine police cars and we’ve got six motorbikes. We’ll be utilising them with as many officers as we can every day basically to make our roads safer and enforce against the criminals who feel like it’s okay to come into the county and use our road for criminal purposes.”
Lincolnshire’s Police and Crime Commissioner Marc Jones at the launch of the force’s Roads Policing Unit. | Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite
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