A man, Keenan Ridgway Skegness Paedophile, has been sentenced to six years and three months in prison for sexually assaulting a four-year-old girl and disseminating footage of the abuse online. Keenan Ridgway, 21, became the focus of a National Crime Agency investigation in August 2021 after transmitting the material to another perpetrator who was apprehended in Miami.
Following the correlation of photographs and videos with those uploaded to a file-sharing network in 2018, NCA detectives identified Keenan Ridgway as the account’s user. NCA officials apprehended him at his residence in Skegness and confiscated his phone. This was investigated and found to match the phone utilised to produce the abusive material, from which the platform was accessed multiple times throughout 2018.
The phone documented Keenan Ridgway’s journey on the night several videos were produced. This aligns with his presence at the site of the abuse. Officers also retrieved several articles of Ridgway’s clothes, fragments of which were visible in the abuse films.
The file-sharing application was installed on his phone, revealing that Keenan Ridgway had uploaded a total of 450 GB of content, comprising around 30,000 indecent photographs of children (IIOC) across categories A-C. Forty-two of these pertained to the young girl.
An further 355 IIOC were discovered from his phone.
Email records indicated that before perpetrating the abuse, Keenan Ridgway informed another internet user that he had dispatched all the movies he possessed, but assured that he would be “creating new ones soon so you’ll be the first recipient.”
Keenan Ridgway faced 16 charges, comprising three counts of child sexual assault, three counts each of capturing and holding indecent images of children (IIOC), six counts of disseminating IIOC, and possession of forbidden imagery.
He admitted admission to all charges and received a sentence of six years and three months in jail at Lincoln Crown Court. He has been permanently registered as a sex offender and is additionally subject to a 10-year sexual harm prevention order.
Martin Ludlow of the National Crime Agency stated: “His actions have inflicted trauma on those affected, the repercussions of which may endure long after he has completed his sentence.”
The NCA possesses specialised tools to identify high-risk offenders like as Keenan Ridgway, who present a sexual threat to minors, and we will persist in our efforts to ensure their identification and prosecution.
If you or anyone you know have been affected by the people highlighted in this article, then please report those individuals to the Police on 101 (999 if an emergency) or visit their online resources for further details of the options for reporting a crime. You can also make a report at Crimestoppers should you wish to be completely anonymous. There is help available on our support links page.