Hednesford man, 39, spared jail over child porn photos
A Hednesford man who downloaded pornographic pictures of young girls from the internet was spared a jail sentence by a judge.
Images of girls as young as three being sexually abused were found on Scott Townsend's laptop computer, Stafford Crown Court heard.
An investigation of the computer revealed he had been searching the net for child porn, using search terms such as "preteen model".
Townsend, aged 39, of Belt Road, who admitted five charges of making indecent images of children, was given a three-year community order with a sex offender treatment programme and told to pay £500 costs.
Judge Michael Chambers QC told him: "You deliberately searched for and downloaded images of child pornography from the internet.
"It is no bad thing to remind ourselves of the nature of these images," said the judge, who went on to describe one shocking photo of a girl, possibly only three years old, being vilely abused.
"If it wasn't for people such as yourself searching for and seeing such images, the wicked people who perpetrate this abuse would not exist," the judge told Townsend.
"Two things have saved you from an immediate sentence of imprisonment - in your case there are relatively few images and you have indicated you recognise you do have a problem and you willing to work with the probation service."
Mr William Dudley, prosecuting, said police executed a search warrant at Townsend's home on April 4 last year and seized his laptop. On it were a total of 22 indecent images of children, including nine in the most serious category A, ten in category B and three in category C. All featured girls under the age of ten.
When questioned Townsend claimed he used adult pornography and had "inadvertently" downloaded images of children, but the evidence showed he had used specific search terms on a notorious file sharing site.
Mrs Liz DeOliveira, defending, said Townsend was a socially isolated man who had taken to using cannabis and alcohol to excess, which led him to make poor decisions.
"This court often deals with people who have thousands and thousands of images and in this case there were 22," she said.
