Azov Films Suspect, Dead

Coming just weeks after Dr Myles Bradbury pleaded guilty to crimes against children in his care.

A paedophile deputy headmaster who secretly filmed his pupils was left free to continue his abuse for more than two years after police failed to act on information that he could be a danger to children.

Martin Goldberg, who had worked at the £10,000-a-year private school for more than 20 years, was named to British authorities as a suspect in July 2012.

He was among 2,345 individuals suspected of having accessed child pornography whose names were handed to the UK’s Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP) following a major inquiry in Canada.

But the CEOP failed to act on the information from Toronto Police’s Operation Spade – and it was only in November last year that Essex Police were told that Goldberg had been buying videos of naked boys from a vendor based in Canada.

Even then, Essex Police did nothing about the 46-year-old until three weeks ago – almost a year after being informed.

Nor did officers warn Thorpe Hall School in Southend, where Goldberg, an IT expert, regularly took children away on school trips.

The blunders were compounded when officers failed in a bid to get a search warrant from a magistrate.

So they simply visited the paedophile’s home, just over a mile from the school, and politely asked if they could examine his computer. He refused and the officers left without arresting him.

Within hours, however, he tried to destroy the evidence by reportedly setting fire to his computer and other devices and paperwork – and then hanged himself in the garage of his £360,000 four-bedroom home.

Detectives were still able to recover 75 images taken on a camera that was hidden in a bag in the school’s male changing rooms.

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