Former Labour Government MP Jailed for Just 28 Months for Possessing Child Porn

A former MP who previously served in a Labour Party government has been jailed after being found with nearly 1,500 indecent images of children.

Paul Clark, 66, the former Labour Party MP for Gillingham in Kent from 1997-2010, will be jailed for just 28 months after being found in possession of nearly 1,500 images of child pornography. He will also be put on the Sex Offenders’ List for a decade.

Clark had formerly served as a junior minister within Tony Blair’s government, as well as acting as the private secretary for a variety of high-ranking figures in the party, including former Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott and education secretary Ed Balls.

According to a report by LBC, Clark pled guilty to both making and distributing indecent images of children back in December with police having found him in possession of 298 Category A videos and stills, 415 Category B, and 733 Category C after a raid on his home, totalling just under 1,500 indecent images of children.

“I kept telling myself to stop,” the former parliamentarian reportedly told police during the raid, also informing officers that he “knew” why they were there.

None of the offences occurred at a time when Clark was serving as an MP, the Labour Party’s veteran’s lawyer claimed, with prosecutors saying that the vast majority of the images were downloaded during periods of COVID lockdown.