Inspector Lee Bartram made and distributed more than 300 indecent images of children

A police force suppressed details of an officer who is a convicted paedophile by claiming that disclosure would create a “severe threat” of terrorism.

West Midlands police told a judge that he would be making a valuable contribution to combating terrorism by banning publication of the home address of Inspector Lee Bartram, who made and distributed more than 300 indecent images of children.

Bartram, 44, pleaded guilty at Walsall magistrates’ court to five charges of making an indecent photograph of a child and two of distributing an indecent photograph of a child.

The court was told that he had followed and videoed a boy of six and added a commentary in which he blamed the child’s parents for dressing him in an “attractive way”.

Ordinarily