March 2014
Pensioner looked at child abuse images because it was ‘nice’
A PENSIONER, who became obsessed with looking at indecent images of children, told police he did it because it was “nice”.
Police started to investigate Terence Hale, 65, of Creakavose, St Stephen, after a legitimate UK-based website was compromised in June 2011, Truro Crown Court heard on Thursday.
Ramsay Quaife, for the Crown Prosecution Service, said the website was attacked by a virus which led to DVDs purporting to contain child abuse images, being advertised on the site.
Mr Quaife said the site was compromised for 57 hours and during that time 3,000 people accessed the DVD advert.
Judge Christopher Harvey Clark, QC, said: “That really is a staggering figure … presumably those who enjoy such images were sending messages to others whom they know enjoyed such images to get others to access the site.”
Mr Quaife said police investigating the Internet Protocol (IP) addresses which had accessed the site were led to Hale and that on March 13 last year they raided his home and seized his computer.
They found more than 300 indecent images on the machine, which ranged between levels one to four on the scale police use to categorise such material with five being the highest.
In interview, Hale told police he was not a predatory and that it would never enter his mind to touch a child.
Mr Quiafe said: “He told police that he knew what he had been doing was wrong.
“He told police it was nice to look at and it was just for personal relief.”
At an earlier hearing Hale admitted eight counts of making indecent images of children.
Maurice Champion, for the defence, said Hale had suffered a deformity in his foot which left him in pain and unable to sleep.
He said: “He got into surfing dodgy areas of the internet as a result of spending time in pain at night [when he] couldn’t sleep.”
Sentencing Hale to six months in prison suspended for 24 months, Judge Harvey Clark said looking at pornographic images of children was despicable.
He said: “You became obsessed with this kind of material and it is that obsession that I am primarily concerned with.”
Hale was ordered to carry out an internet sex offenders programme, sign the sex offenders’ register and made the subject of a sexual offences prevention order.
