Child porn sentence is suspended

A man turned to child pornography after illness wrecked his social life, a judge heard.

Police seized the computer of Spencer Perks in a raid on his home after a tip off and found it had more than 60,000 indecent images and 3,000 indecent films stored on it, Wolverhampton Crown Court heard.

They involved children aged between two and 15 years, said Hugh O'Brien-Quinn, prosecuting.

Perks, who the court heard suffered from debilitating headaches that ruined his social life, went to the police four days after the raid to admit the crime but it still took over two and a half years to deal with the case, it was revealed.

The 39-year-old of Silverstone Drive, Streetly, admitted 10 charges of making indecent images and two of possessing indecent images and indecent movies. He was sentenced to a year in jail suspended under supervision for two years.

Mr O'Brien-Quinn said Perks' home was raided on February 21, 2008, by police who seized his computer hard drive.

He insisted there was nothing incriminating on it but went to the police station on February 25 to confess he had been downloading indecent images of children.

There were 66,458 images and 3,184 indecent films. Of these, 66,283 of the images and 83 of the films were categorised as level one - the lowest banding.

But 942 of the films were ranked between levels three and five, the most serious, and 144 images also fell into those categories.

Judge Robin Onions said: "Within my lifetime some of those images now categorised as level one could be published legally so not all of this was hideous pornography. "

Simon Drew, defending, said: "Perks admitted his guilt two and a half years ago and since then this man has had to live with his life on hold. He suffers from a serious medical condition that produces clusters of debilitating headaches four or five times a day and means that he has to sleep with oxygen by his bed.

"This greatly diminished his social life which led him to spend increasing amounts of time on the internet and the steps from there to pornography are well trodden."

Judge Onions, who also ordered him to pay £250 towards the prosecution costs, said: "The overwhelming majority of the images were at the lowest level but some of the others were chilling and appalling.

"But you admitted the offences two and a half years ago. The subsequent delay in the case is unacceptable and must be reflected in the sentence that I pass on you."