A paedophile who was jailed for the third time after downloading indecent images of children and a drug dealer who supplied drug users in Ipswich with cocaine and heroin are among those jailed this month.

Here are just some of the criminals that were put behind bars in Suffolk in September.

Michael Higgins

Michael Higgins, 72, was jailed for the third time after downloading indecent images of children.

Higgins, of Raeburn Road, Ipswich, admitted six offences of making indecent images of children and breaching a sexual harm prevention order.

He was jailed for four years in 2005 for 17 offences of making and distributing indecent images of children and was jailed again in 2016 for 12 months for five offences of making indecent images of children, possessing a prohibited image of a child and two offences of possessing extreme pornography.

Recorder Graham Huston jailed him for 16 months and ordered that a sexual harm prevention order made in 2016 should continue.

He also ordered him to sign the sex offenders’ register.

The court heard that in February last year Higgins contacted a public protection officer who had been assigned to him as a result of his previous convictions and confessed to breaching the 2016 sexual harm prevention order by deleting his browsing history and viewing “borderline” images.

He also admitted destroying devices that had indecent images on them.

Claire Hullock for Higgins said he had been a teacher all his life and was forced to leave the profession because of his convictions.

In 2005 when Higgins was jailed for four years Ipswich Crown Court heard that he had superimposed pupils’ faces on downloaded pornographic pictures.

The court was told Higgins, who was living in The Street, Wattisfield, had abused his position of trust as a teacher and unofficial photographer at Rosemary Musker High School, in Thetford, by making more than 15,000 indecent or pseudo images of 132 pupils between 1999 and January 2005.

Adrian Patchett

A convicted murderer was located in Ipswich last month after failing to meet the conditions of his leave from Hollesley Bay prison in east Suffolk.

Adrian Patchett, who is serving a life sentence, should have returned to to an address in Old Norwich Road on August 6, but did not report back until two days later, Ipswich Crown Court heard.

Patchett admitted failing to comply with a temporary licence and was sentenced to two further months' imprisonment.

Abdishakur Salah

Abdishakur Salah ran the ‘Deano’ drug line which supplied heroin and cocaine to drug users in Suffolk, Ipswich Crown Court heard.

The 27-year-old was arrested three times at properties in Ipswich in June, September and October last year, including an occasion when an unsuccessful attempt was made to flush £6,000 of heroin and cocaine down a toilet at a house in Pelican Close.

Salah, of no fixed address, was convicted by a jury at Ipswich Crown Court last month of being concerned in the supply of cocaine and heroin.

He was jailed for six years.

Jonathan Baigent

Jonathan Baigent, of Fore Hamlet, Ipswich, has been jailed for two and a half years for sending "abhorrent" sexually explicit messages to a 13-year-old girl.

He used Instagram to send the messages to the teenager from Leicestershire while pretending to be a 38-year-old man from Portsmouth.

The victim's mother reported the messages to police in 2020 and enquiries led officers to Baigent, where he was ultimately arrested and charged.

The 45-year-old was sentenced at Ipswich Crown Court on Wednesday to 32 months imprisonment for sexual communication with a child and two breaches of Sexual Harm Prevention Orders.

James Mitchell and Luke Booth

The two men who were involved in a string of thefts from farms and businesses across Suffolk where agricultural and machinery worth more than £130,000 was stolen have each been jailed for four years and six months.

Sentencing 35-year-old James Mitchell and 22-year-old Luke Booth, both of Woodlands Way, West Meadows, Ipswich, Recorder Sarah Przyvylska, described the thefts as “planned and sophisticated”.

The pair admitted conspiracy to steal over a three-month period towards the end of last year.

Charles Judge, prosecuting, said that during the conspiracy agricultural equipment and machinery worth £133,000 was stolen.

Simon Gladwell for Mitchell said his client, who has four children, wanted to put his criminal past behind him as soon as possible and to start a crime-free life.