Swim Coach Given Suspended Sentence & Faces Deportation Over Child Pornography Video Found On His USB

By Alric Lindsay

A swimming coach who kept a child pornography video on a USB drive at his home has been given a suspended prison sentence, made the subject of a five-year Sexual Harm Prevention Order, and is to be deported from the Cayman Islands at the earliest opportunity.

Brenton St. Klaire Armstrong, who worked as a swimming instructor and reportedly was involved in the swim programme in Cayman Brac, pled guilty to possessing child pornography. The single video — the only such item found — was recovered from a Kingston flash drive seized from his home on November 15, 2024.

The Material

The Grand Court heard today, July 17, 2026, that the video showed a male and a female, both said by a police analyst to appear aged between 12 and 16, engaged in sexual intercourse on the stairway of a school, with younger children visible nearby and a person off-camera appearing to give instructions at a school in Jamaica. Crown Counsel from the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions put the material at “Category A,” the most serious classification.

A Newton Hearing

Although Armstrong admitted possession, he disputed the basis of the offence — an account that DPP Crown Counsel did not accept — so Justice Peters conducted a Newton hearing to determine the facts on which he would be sentenced. Two questions were set: in what circumstances he obtained the video, and how often he had accessed or viewed it since.

His account was that the video had been sent to him some 15 years earlier in Jamaica, in connection with a child-safeguarding situation, that he had watched it once to understand what he was being asked to deal with, and had then forgotten about it; he said it later migrated from his phone to a laptop and onto the USB drive when he was hurriedly saving files from a failing computer.

The Evidence

The court heard from two IT forensic experts — one from the RCIPS Digital Forensic Unit for the DPP and a defence expert from a private IT firm.

While the defence expert challenged aspects of DPP Crown Counsel’s analysis, Justice Peters noted that on the central points the experts did not ultimately disagree. She found herself “satisfied and sure” that the video was created in October 2010, copied onto the USB drive in 2015, and last accessed in 2023.

Armstrong also gave evidence, describing his career as a swimming coach since the late 1990s — the YMCA in Jamaica, later clubs and Hilton hotel in Jamaica, and from April 2022 the government swim programme in Cayman Brac.

‘A Pack Of Lies’: The Judge’s Findings

Justice Peters rejected Armstrong’s explanation. On his own account he had worked with the child he described while employed at the YMCA between 2000 and 2004, when she was about 14 — which, the judge observed, would have made her around 20 by the time the video was created in 2010, so the account did not fit the evidence.

She said she did not believe him, that he had “come up with a story that’s just a pack of lies,” and that she rejected his evidence. The suggestion that a safeguarding group would have entrusted a former employee — by then, on his own history, a hotel lifeguard — with such a matter years later she described as “miserable, laughable, staggeringly untrue.” She also drew an adverse inference from his decision, when interviewed, to rely on a prepared statement rather than answer questions about how the video came to be on the USB.

Justice Peters concluded that Armstrong knew he had put the video onto the USB and had kept it. However, she said she could not be sure how many times he had viewed it between 2015 and 2023 — “it could be 100, it could be zero” — and so sentenced him on the basis that he possessed it knowingly and last accessed it in 2023. She noted, in his favour, that only one image was found across two laptops and three USB drives, observing that such cases were “a rarity” in this jurisdiction.

‘The Parents Would Be Horrified’

Justice Peters spoke about the wider harm of such material and the protection of children. She remarked that the parents of the children Armstrong had taught to swim “would be horrified to know that the man they entrusted with teaching their children to swim was in fact someone who was in possession” of child pornography.

Anyone who possessed such material, she said, contributed to “the hideous abuse of children,” and “every court in every land should be quick to condemn those who possess such” images. Returning to the point at sentencing, she said her priority was “the safety of the children” — and that whatever happened, Armstrong would
“not be allowed to work with children anywhere.”

The Sentence

Because he pled guilty, Armstrong was entitled to a one-third reduction in sentence. But Justice Peters ordered that he lose half of that credit because he had contested — and lost — the Newton hearing, having warned that this was a risk.

From a starting point of 12 months, and taking into account that a moving image is more serious than a still but that only one image was involved, she imposed a sentence of 10 months’ imprisonment.

Justice Peters then suspended that sentence for two years, so Armstrong will not go to prison unless he offends during that period. She said she did not need to imprison him to protect children, given that he had complied with a lengthy curfew, was assessed as low risk, and — most significantly — was to be deported. She ordered the forfeiture and destruction of the USB drive.

Sexual Harm Prevention Order And Deportation

Justice Peters imposed a Sexual Harm Prevention Order for five years. Its terms prohibit Armstrong from working with children (paid or voluntary), from owning devices capable of storing digital images unless registered with and open to inspection by police, and from using internet-capable devices unless he notifies an officer.

Defence counsel Dennis Brady was given time to challenge specific terms of the order; if he does, the matter will be relisted, otherwise the order stands.

Armstrong is to be deported at the earliest opportunity. Justice Peters deliberately attached no supervision requirement to the suspended sentence, explaining that a supervision condition would only delay his removal, which she did not want to do. The court heard he is not expected to be permitted to return to the Cayman Islands for some time; the Sexual Harm Prevention Order would apply for five years should he ever return.