Military News Today

Timothy Herbert Darch of Southdrop Road, Kingsway, Quedgeley, now 62yrs old, formerly known as Julian Timothy Darch, was found guilty of multiple counts of serious sexual assaults that took place in Swindon back in the 1990s against three teenage boys under the age of 16yrs on 20th February this year.

Later this month Mr Darch will be back in court to hear his sentencing, but how did this peadophile stay under the radar for so long?

Well, in the 1990s Tim Darch went by another name, Julian Timothy Darch, computers weren’t a thing in peoples homes, the internet was in its infancy and very few people had a mobile phone. It was the age of analogue still. Most people got their news from the one TV in the house and newspapers. It was an era where an identity was easy to hide.

Fast forward to 2017, Mr Darch still known as Julian is convicted of owning and producing child pornography in Swindon Crown Court, but still he was able to hide his identity. We now live in a world of news and information at our fingertips, our phones are now gateways to information beyond anything we could of imagined even a decade ago. So with this ease of information at our finger tips how did Tim Darch stay under the radar?

We have to first go into Mr Darch’s habit’s, his use of the internet, in particular social media was discrete, never putting an image of himself online, talking to one of his victims of the 1990s, they said he would always be the one offering to take the photos, his personality made people feel at ease and for his not wanting to be in front of the camera normal. This same trait transferred to the internet, always behind the camera on his social media.

Shortly after Mr Darch’s 2017 conviction, he changed his name from Julian Timothy Darch to Timothy Herbert Darch by Deed Poll. A man just a few months prior who had been put on the sex offenders register was able to change his identity with a few clicks on the internet, Julian Darch, now Timothy Darch was able to go about his underground lifestyle under a new legal identity. You would have thought that there was laws in place to stop a sex offender on the register from changing their identity, but this is sadly not the case.

This wasn’t the only way Mr Darch was able to go back under the radar. The local press coverage was a short paragraph in the local paper, but the publication failed to take a photo of Mr Darch. Even if there was no photographer available, the court reporter could have easily have taken a photo on their phone. Something in speaking to Richard Hall, one of Mr Darch’s victims came up, which Mr Hall recently put in his latest blog.

Hall told Military News Today “if any of the newspapers or news websites that reported Tim’s conviction actually done their job, Tim wouldn’t have been able to hide. All they did was copy the statement from the police announcing the conviction, edit it slightly, and click publish. Some of them even copied from each other, edited a bit, and clicked publish. Not a single outlet or newsgroup did any research, or journalism, and if they had done the absolute bare minimum, then Tim wouldn’t have been able to get away with what he did.”

Darch even made his way into the reporting local papers online comments writing as himself, arguing the ownership of hundreds of child porn images was just being curious and ok. At no point did the publication question or show concern, seven years later the same comments by Darch are on the publications website. Something News Quest have deleted this week from The Salisbury Journal website article dating back to 2017.

As a journalist I feel its our professional duty to inform the public, and fully report on the news and not just write scrappy short paragraph stories or even worse copy and paste from other publications. If the local publication had just taken a photo of Darch during his 2017 trial, he wouldn’t of been able to go on to become a local councillor just a few months later, giving him access to young and vulnerable people within the community. Changing his name by Deed Poll would not have given him the immunity it gave him if the publication reporting his trial had taken and published his photo.

The local press became complicit in helping Darch hide his identity for all these years through lazy journalism, allowed him to become a local councillor and hide his secret world from the public. When we spoke to editor of Wiltshire 999s, the only Swindon based publication that reported the conviction of Darch back in 2017 for child porn, asking about lazy journalism allegations by one of the victims of Darch and editor Daniel Webb replied “I did not have a mode of transport – hence the basic coverage of the case back then.” Webb went on to admit he could have used a police mug shot but would not answer on why he did not publish the article with a photo of Darch.

Although the Swindon Advertiser did not report on the 2017 conviction of Darch, they did reported on the recent trial of Darch which found him guilty of multiple counts, including child rape. However talking to one of Darch’s victims, again they were extremely disappointed with the lack of coverage, lazy journalism and detail that allows Darch to continue to live with anonymity with no photo even though they were sent recent images of Darch from us at Military News Today. We sent several images to the Swindon Advertiser, but they claimed they lost them when we contacted them for an answer on why they didn’t use the photos. We have offered the Swindon Advertiser our recent images of Tim Darch, but as of this article there has been no reply.

The system for three decades has failed the public and put young people at risk and still today continues to put our children at risk. Speaking to local Swindon PMs Justin Tomlinson and Robert Buckland, they informed Military News Today that steps were being put in place where going forward that local councillors directly involved with children and vulnerable people will need to be DBS background checked, something that when Tim Darch was councillor, never had to do.

Mr Hall, although happy that at least some steps are being made felt when we spoke to him that the steps fell short of what is really needed, Hall said “All councillors should be DBS checked. Teachers, photographers, traffic wardens and locksmiths all need to be DBS checked, so why aren’t councillors, that are seen as pillars of the community often at the heart of community events involving children not required to be DBS checked? Something needs to be done.”

Mr Hall went on to say “A number of things need to change, to help protect children today and in the future, besides making it standard practice for all councillors to be DBS checked, there should be a law in place to stop any convicted sex offender on the register changing their name by Deed Poll.” Hall also said “

Richard Hall will soon be campaigning for change to laws that currently fail victims of sexual violence. We will be reporting on this as it happens.