BREAKING: Sadistic paedophile who raped young boy is jailed for 18 years

To his friends and neighbours in Cranfield where he and his family lived, Duncan Hogben was a pillar of respectability.
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Court news

He was a school governor, a member of the school PTA and ran his own catering business.

But it was all a facade, a court heard today, Friday.

Hogben, 43, was a dangerous and sadistic paedophile who raped a young boy, even taking a photograph of the youngster as he carried out the appalling act.

Hogben appeared in custody for sentence at Luton Crown Court having been found guilty in June of the rape of a child under 13 and taking an indecent picture of the boy. He had also pleaded guilty to nine other charges involving sexual assaults of two other young boys and taking and sharing indecent images.

Jailing him for a total of 18 years, Judge Philip Bartle QC told Hogben “I do not believe for one moment that you gave any thought whatsoever to the damage you were causing. All you were interested in was fulfilling your own sexual gratification.”

He also made a Sexual Harm Prevention Order for life and ordered that his name should be on the Sex Offenders Register also for life.

It was in January of this year that Bedfordshire Police received information from the National Crime Agency that Hogben was sharing indecent images over the Internet and using a Dropbox account.

Within half an hour, detectives from Bedfordshire Police’s Child Exploitation Online Protection Unit were knocking on the front door of his home at in Cranfield.

Hogben wasn’t at home but officers were told he rented space in the kitchen at a local pub where he ran a catering business.

As a result officers went to the pub in the village where he was arrested.

His iPhone was seized and on it police found disturbing images, both moving and still of a very young boy being sexually assaulted. The pictures had been taken by Hogben just days earlier on January 12 and then on January 20 this year.

Also seized by police was Hogben’s Acer laptop.

It too was examined and revealed the sickening still image of a young boy aged between eight and ten being raped by Hogben. Altogether he had 226 indecent images of children, some concealed in a hidden file.

As detectives looked into Hogben’s activities, they discovered he had been behind a series of sexualised chat logs where he had posed as a 13-year-old boy to communicate with other paedophiles online.

Hogben, a school governor at Cranfield Church of England Academy who sat on his local PTA didn’t give evidence at his trial.

Miss Alex Kettle-Williams, defending,said: “”There is a degree of remorse and it is said he would respond to intervention while in prison.”