Two retired Metropolitan Police officers are due in court accused of being in a ‘paedophile ring’ with a senior colleague who was later found dead.

Chief Inspector Richard Watkinson was found dead in his Buckinghamshire home on Thursday, January 12 this year following being charged with child sex offences.

His co-defendants Jack Addis, 63, from Perthshire in Scotland, and Jeremy Laxton, 62, from Grantham in Lincolnshire, have both been charged with conspiracy to distribute or show indecent images of children between January 2018 and July 2021.

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They are both due in Southwark Crown Court this afternoon (May 25).

The retired pair were arrested after a Met investigation into Watkinson, of Princes Risborough, who was accused of having a stash of boys' underwear and child pornography in a ‘secret’ room.

Officers found the room in a July 2021 raid after a lengthy investigation. It was allegedly hidden behind a trap door, where it is claimed he kept pants, sex toys and images of child abuse.

Laxton, who was first detained in September 2021, is also charged with three counts of making indecent photographs of a child, one count of possession of a prohibited image, one count of possessing an extreme pornographic image, one count of intentionally encouraging or assisting the commission of an offence and one count of possessing a controlled class B drug.

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Addis was arrested in November 2021. Both officers left the Met over ten years ago.