August 2014
Tamworth paedophile jailed for 18 months
A CONVICTED Tamworth sex offender who downloaded child abuse images while undergoing rehabilitation has been jailed for 18 months.
Shaun Garron received a community order from a judge when he was prosecuted in 2009 for having DVDs containing indecent images of youngsters.
But in March last year police checked to see if he was complying with sex offence prevention measures and found a total of 20 images of child porn on his iPhone.
Garron had also deleted the search history on the phone, a breach of his Sexual Offences Prevention Order.
Mr Paul Spratt, prosecuting, said six images on the iPhone were of category A, which defines the most serious acts of depravity against children. There were two images of category B and 12 category C. The defendant had also distributed nine images, including two in category A, to men he had met in internet chat rooms.
Garron, aged 32, who lived in Watling Street, admitted three charges of making indecent images, three of distributing indecent images and a breach of the SOPO.
Judge Michael Challinor told him the 18 month sentence was “a punishment and a deterrent”.
“It sends out a message that those who do [this] will be sent to jail.
“The public frequently find it difficult to understand why people who download indecent images don’t go straight to prison. Very often the reason – probably the reason you escaped custody in 2009 – is because protection of the public is paramount and community orders with appropriate sex offender programmes have been deemed successful in turning sex offenders away from that type of behaviour.
“You have been through this programme, no doubt co-operating, but at the very time you were undertaking this you were downloading more indecent images of children and, more seriously, distributing them.
“The harm that distribution does is more significant than possession because, as you said to the probation officer, it’s people like you who join people like you.
“The purpose of the sentence I am imposing is to punish you and deter others and to give confidence to the public that sex offenders will be properly punished,” said the judge.
Mr Spratt said Garron was given a community order in 2009 after his partner discovered DVDs containing indecent images of children.
During a three-week period between August and September 2011 Garron downloaded 20 indecent images to his iPhone. He told police following the check in 2013 that he had “fallen in to a conversation with like-minded individuals on an internet forum” and distributed some of the images. Four contacts were found on his phone.
Mr Michael Grey, defending, said the images had been downloaded when Garron was at a low ebb, two years after the SOPO was made. “He was feeling low at the time, he had been ostracised at work and subjected to name calling. He had been a happy-go-lucky person beforehand, he now describes himself as a recluse.”
He had ceased contact with those he met online, deleted the images from his phone and put an end to this behaviour himself.
