Throughout this unprecedented last year, the criminal justice system has continued to function despite numerous challenges.
While the first three months of this 2021 were spent in full lockdown, sexual offenders, paedophiles and rapists were still being jailed.
Just this week, a serving Met police officer was handed a custodial sentence after being caught in an undercover sting and arrested at work in Bromley.
We have compiled a list south east London sexual offenders jailed this year.
Mark Collins, 58, was arrested at work in a Bromley police station after he was caught in an undercover sting.
The Detective Constable thought he was talking to a 13-year-old girl when he sent pictures of his privates over the Kik Messenger app while he was on holiday in Malta.
Jailing him for two years and four months on Friday, Judge Mark Lucraft QC described the messages as being of a “highly sexualised nature”.
Collins, who resigned from the Met after his arrest, was found to have committed gross misconduct at a disciplinary hearing last week and the force said he would have been sacked if he were still a serving officer.
Marnix Angenent, from Lewisham, was arrested in November 2018 after National Crime Agency investigators linked him to a series of online chat rooms and platforms created for users to share child sexual abuse material.
The 47-year-old, of Springbank Road, once uploaded a video for others to view of a 12-year-old boy being raped.
Officers recovered a laptop, USB stick and hard drive from his home, which were found to contain over 11,000 indecent images and videos of children – ranging from Category A to C.
He sentenced to two and a half years in jail at Woolwich Crown Court this month.
Former footballer Alhaji Sesay, 22, was jailed for ten years for rape and attempted rape following attacks on women he met in nightclubs.
Avon and Somerset Police said Sesay, from Greenwich, was convicted of one count of rape and two of attempted rape against two women following a trial at Bristol Crown Court.
The former player for Bristol City and the Sierra Leone national team, was arrested following an incident at Mbargo nightclub in Bristol on July 11 2019.
He was alleged to have trapped a woman in a toilet cubicle and attempted to rape her.
The woman managed to break free and raised the alarm with friends and door staff, resulting in Sesay being arrested.
Abubakar Lawal, 32, raped a woman in his Dartford home as she screamed for help in May 2020.
Soon after she arrived, he made unwanted sexual advances and then threatened her with claims he would “find a knife.”
Fearing his behaviour, she was forced to comply with his demands.
Police received several calls from members of the public, who heard screams for help coming from the address, and Lawal was promptly detained.
Lawal denied rape, two counts of sexual assault, causing sexual activity without consent and assault occasioning actual bodily harm.
He was found guilty of each offence following a trial at Woolwich Crown Court.
Former private tutor John Broughton indecently assaulted a nine-year-old boy he taught in Sidcup in the early 1980s.
The 75-year-old was was jailed in the 1980s for a string of similar offences.
The new conviction came about when another victim came forward after nearly 40 years.
He was sentenced to one day's imprisonment concurrent with a sentence he is currently serving for a different offence.
The judge imposed this sentence as Broughton had already served a 40-month sentence in 1986 for a series of similar offences.
The judge ruled that, if the judge in 1986 had been aware of the current case, he would not have imposed any greater sentence than he did.
Steven Baldock, of Compton Place, Erith, was caught trying to contact a 12-year-old girl on Instagram, breaching his Sexual harm Prevention Order.
The 51-year-old was previously convicted of inciting a child to engage in sexual activity in 2016, and was sentenced to two years jail time, but suspended for two years.
He was also placed on the sexual offenders register for ten years and given a SHPO under the conditions that prohibited him from using the internet to contact or to attempt to contact any female whom he knows or believes to be under the age of 16.
But on November 14, 2020, Baldock initiated contact with a 12-year-old girl via Instagram.
Baldock was sentenced at Woolwich Crown Court on Monday, January 18, to three years' imprisonment for breaching the SHPO order.
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