Child porn pics were 'not dreadful' – judge tells Cradley Heath man, 61
A 61-year-old pervert who had 358 extreme images of child pornography and bestiality on his laptop has been told they were not 'dreadful'.
Stanley Pienaar, of Unit Drive, Cradley Heath, appeared at Wolverhampton Crown Court on Thursday, where he was sentenced to five years on the sex offenders' register and issued with a 24-month community order with a rehabilitation requirement of 50 days.
He was also ordered to pay £200 towards the costs of the prosecution, to be paid in instalments of £5 a week for 44 weeks and his laptop was also ordered to be forfeited and seized.
The court heard how Pienaar claimed he had accessed the images out of curiosity and only did so because he was impotent and needed ways to improve his sex life with his partner. Police were alerted to Pienaar's perversion when his former partner, accessed his laptop in May 2015 and came across 50 to 60 of the images.
When police seized the computer, they found 358 extreme images of children, as well as animals, and 64 so-called category C images.
Category C images are defined as 'images of erotic posing', according to the Protection of Children Act 1978. They also accessed Pienaar's internet search history which included extreme search terms for images with young girls.
Judge Nicholas Webb, sentencing Pienaar, said: "You became deliberately in possession of a number of images of children.
"The reasons you gave to the police and the probation service in a way makes this case tinged with sadness. Some images this court has to hear of sometimes are dreadful and cause gross human suffering. These however, are not. Some children in the images are in fact clothed and in sexual poses, wearing leotards and the like. There are no aggravating features in this case and so I do not believe it is necessary to deprive you of your liberty.
"One can call the images disgusting, but they are not as extreme as some of the images the court sometimes has to deal with.
"You must attend your appointments as and when required. If you do not attend you could be in breach of your order and come back to court. Then the court may have another view about your sentencing."
The court heard how Pienaar, who walks with the aid of a walking stick, was married to his partner in 1987 before splitting from her in 2003. She had later moved back in.
