Primary school head with paedophile manual and one million abuse images is jailed

James Hockaday
Updated ·3 min read
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Primary school headteacher Thomas Singleton, 41, who has been jailed for a collection of child abuse images at his home in Framlingham in Suffolk.
Primary school headteacher Thomas Singleton, 41, who has been jailed for a collection of child abuse images at his home in Framlingham in Suffolk. (PA/NCA)

A primary school headteacher who kept a "paedophile manual" and a stash of more than one million indecent images at home has been jailed for six years.

Thomas Singleton, 41, who was one of the child safeguarding leads at his school, was arrested last February after investigators discovered he had accessed illegal files online.

Investigators from the National Crime Agency (NCA) searched his home in Framlingham, Suffolk, and found a vast collection of disturbing items on his laptops and devices.

Within those were a collection of chilling pseudo-images, which had been created by Singleton by superimposing himself into photos so it looked like he was engaging in sexual activity with children.

Thomas Singleton mugshot
Singleton kept a folder of handdrawn flowcharts detailing different abuse scenarios. (PA/NCA)

A 170-page paedophile manual entitled “How To Practice Child Love” was found on Singleton’s hard drive, containing chapters providing advice and guidance on how to sexually abuse children without being caught.

In all, Singleton had 1,050,448 indecent images of children, 45,216 prohibited images of children and 52 extreme pornographic images in his collection.

Officers also recovered a number of online chat logs in which Singleton spoke with other like-minded individuals about child sexual abuse.

Some chats show him partaking in "age play", where both users pretend to be a child engaging in sexual activity with the other.

Ipswich Crown Court, Suffolk, England. (Photo by: Education Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
Singleton was jailed for six years at Ipswich Crown Court. (Getty Images)

Hand-drawn flow charts linked to documents describing child abuse scenarios, which could be "personalised" to include victims' names, were found in a folder labelled "Tom's Action Folder".

Officers also recovered a toddler-sized doll, underwear and clothing for babies and young children, and a silicone sex aid made to resemble a child’s genitals.

Singleton, who has no children of his own, resigned as a teacher during the course of the 18-month investigation.

He was charged with eight offences, including taking indecent pseudo-images of a child, making indecent images and possession of a paedophile manual.

He pleaded guilty to all charges and was sentenced on Thursday at Ipswich Crown Court to six years in prison.

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NCA operations manager Michael Parkinson said: “As a safeguarding lead and the head of a primary school, Singleton supposedly represented a dependable figure of safety and trust for young children, their families and the school community.

“This investigation showed he grossly abused that position. His house was filled with a large, disturbing collection of items which proved beyond doubt his sexual interest in children.

“Of particular concern was an extensive paedophile manual which offered explicit, practical guidance on how to carry out abuse.

“This case highlights how an offender’s behaviour can escalate, from downloading abuse material to finding a community of like-minded individuals online who normalise and even encourage this criminal behaviour."