June 2014
Photos of child abuse found on man’s computer
A NORTH Warwickshire man had thousands of images of child abuse on his computer which were available to other people to download via a file-sharing website.
But David Matthews could not be sentenced when he appeared at Warwick Crown Court – after the police twice failed to show the judge a representative selection of the images.
Matthews, aged 30, of Willow Close, Kingsbury, had pleaded guilty to six charges of possessing indecent images of children and one charge of distributing thousands of indecent images.
Prosecutor Ian Speed said that following intelligence which was passed to Warwickshire Police, officers arrested Matthews at his home and seized his laptop computer.
When it was examined by police experts they found many thousands of still indecent images of children and hundreds of pornographic movies of children.
Through a database of known images, the police computer system identified 1,405 still images and 352 movies as being of category A.
That is the most serious category in a newly-adopted scale of seriousness.
There were a further 1,202 stills and 108 movies in category B.
And 10,530 still photographs and 63 movies were in category C, classed as being ‘other indecent images’ of children.
Matthews also accepted distributing 13,660 indecent images across all three categories by having them available on his computer to be accessed by other users of the file-sharing site.
Judges are expected to view a selection of images before sentencing, to enable them to assess their seriousness in terms of factors such as the ages of the victims and levels of distress.
But when Judge Sylvia de Bertodano, accompanied by Mr Speed and defence solicitor Colin Charvill, went into chambers to view them on a police officer’s laptop, they were unable to access any of the images.
Following a lengthy adjournment for the problem to be sorted out, they tried again – only for the officer to show the judge just two images, rather than a representative selection.
Back in court Judge de Bertodano complained: “The point of viewing images is not so I can see they exist, but so I can see the range.
“What happened is I was not able to be shown any moving images. When they were found I was shown two, but without any indication of what they represented. Someone must have an idea of the ages of the children and the levels of the pictures.”
Mr Speed observed: “Your Honour has seen one child Your Honour has identified as being of the age of seven, but another is aged about 15.”
The judge responded: “But I don’t know if anyone is subjected to sadomasochism, or whether any of them were young babies. The officer says he did not know what was in the images and did not know whether the images we have seen were representative.”
Mr Charvill claimed the distribution charge Matthews had admitted was ‘a technicality’ because he had downloaded the images using file-sharing software which meant that other people could access them.
The prosecution could not say how many were actually distributed, and Mr Charvill said: “He has not taken it on himself to distribute them himself. Other people could access them and view them, but he doesn’t know if anyone has.”
Adjourning the case, Judge de Bertodano said: “This case is entirely unready for sentence; I have no idea what I’m sentencing on, and I have a range of up to five years.
“I want there to be a report from the officer who has viewed these images giving me an overall picture of the sort of behaviour that’s covered, including the ages of the children.
“I want a representative range of the pictures. I want the worst examples as well as the more moderate ones included. I want to know if there were two-year-olds; and I want to know if there were pictures of children in distress. And I want to know if those sorts of images were among those distributed.
“I want an explanation of why file-sharing software to download these images is classed as distribution.”
Matthews was granted bail with conditions that he does not access the internet for any purpose other than work and does not have contact with any child under the age of 16.
But the judge warned him: “The penalty is possibly one of many years in prison.”
