Hard drive containing child abuse images held in PCC's safe for 14 years

A hard drive containing indecent images of children was not used as evidence against a former lord mayor of Leeds as it was kept in a police commissioner’s safe for 14 years.

The hard drive belonged to Neil Taggart, who was jailed in 2017 after pleading guilty to charges relating to the possession of indecent images and videos of children on his computer equipment.

A police whistleblower flagged the hard drive’s existence to the BBC in September 2017. The BBC then sent freedom of information (FoI) requests between October 2017 and January 2018 to the police and crime commissioner (PCC) requesting information about the hard drive. These were refused on the grounds that a West Yorkshire police investigation was ongoing.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) closed the case on 28 September 2018 and from this point the PCC could have disclosed the relevant information.

The PCC gave a detailed report to the BBC after a fourth FoI was sent last December. The BBC’s investigation found that the hard drive had been in the safe since 2003, but was not disclosed by the office of West Yorkshire’s PCC until after Taggart pleaded guilty.

Taggart held several high-profile roles in West Yorkshire over many decades. He served as a Leeds city councillor between 1980 and 2014 and was lord mayor of Leeds between 2003 and 2004.

Taggart, who died in December, also served as chairman of the West Yorkshire police authority between 1998 and May 2003.

Mark Burns-Williamson, the current West Yorkshire PCC, also served as the police authority’s chairman, taking over a month after Taggart left.

Burns-Williamson told the BBC: “I think it [the hard drive] was within a secure safe within the police authority. That transferred over to the police and crime commissioner’s office but, certainly, I was not aware that it existed.

“Subsequently some images have been found on there, much later on, of course, and I can only assume he [Taggart] knew full well that was the case, and that’s why he asked for it to be stored. Of course, I’m sorry and I absolutely regret the fact that this hard drive existed and wasn’t discovered until 2017.”

Taggart was jailed for 32 months in July 2017 after admitting three charges of making indecent images of children, three charges of distributing indecent photographs of children, one charge of possessing prohibited images of children and one charge of possession of extreme pornographic images.

The offences were committed between 2007 and 2016, according to the Yorkshire Post, and did not relate to the hard drive.