A SEX offender was caught and jailed in the United States following a North Yorkshire Police investigation.

Joshua Benfey was jailed in June until 2043 by a US court for endangering the welfare of a child and aggravated sexual assault.

But evidence which led to the 38-year-old’s arrest and conviction was initially discovered as part of a North Yorkshire Police investigation into online child sex abuse on the Yorkshire coast.

Superintendent Mark Khan, speaking at the Police and Crime Commissioner’s public accountability meeting, said the breakthrough came from officers investigating “hundreds of thousands of lines of chatroom data” in connection with a suspect in Scarborough. That suspect was later convicted and imprisoned for sharing indecent images of children, grooming and inciting others to offend online.

Supt Khan said: “We dealt with that individual and seizing their computer and equipment, the officer in the case then identified further victims. On examining a device, he identified a victim and an offender in the United States of America, and the officer then contacted the US Embassy to highlight this.

“Within 48 hours, the US Homeland Security and US Marshalls arrested the offender, Joshua Benfey. Whatever our officer had found on the internet through the chap at Scarborough was correct in terms of the abuse that this individual and his associates were committing against the child, and Benfey was subsequently sentenced to 25 years in the New Jersey State Penitentiary.”

Supt Khan said the child victim has now been safeguarded but was unknown to services until North Yorkshire Police’s evidence was uncovered.

He said the successful conviction “shows the worldwide reach of the offending that can occur” through online methods, and praised the work of the online abuse team, cybercrime team and digital forensics staff who helped collate the evidence.

Supt Khan said: “On this occasion, we’ve helped safeguard a child 3-4,000 miles away, which I think is worth saying that was a job well done.”

In August, North Yorkshire Police launched its own online abuse team which aimed to speed up investigations into online evidence gathering and increase the number of guilty pleas relating to child sex abuse. The team works as part of the Digital Intelligence and Investigation Department - which also includes the Cybercrime Unit, Digital Forensics Unit and Mobile Phone Unit.

The meeting also heard that 250 officers, including frontline detectives, had taken part in a course to find out more about cycbercrime investigation techniques, which would help the force become “a truly modern police service”.