Man spared jail over indecent images

Police raided the Hednesford home of 21-year-old David Bruce after learning he had been using a child porn file-sharing site.

Officers seized a computer and Bruce, who the court heard wanted to become a teacher, handed over a laptop later the same day.

On the machines were a total of more than 10,000 pornographic pictures of children suffering abuse.

They included 30 at the most serious level five and 3,075 at level four. Among them were children with estimated ages of eight, five, four and three years and 18 and four months, Mr Paul Farrow, prosecuting, told Stafford Crown Court yesterday.

There was also an image of a newborn, the court was told.

The defendant, of High Mount Street, had been sharing his photos with other users of the site and web-chatting with them.

He asked other users whether they had had any real contact with young children and said he would like to do it himself.

Bruce admitted making indecent images of children and was given a three-year community order under supervision.

Judge Mark Eades told him that guidelines suggested a two-year jail sentence but in that short period, Bruce would not get treatment for his deviant behaviour.

He said: "What's in the public interest is to make sure this doesn't carry on and you are stopped in your tracks."

Bruce was also made subject to a Sexual Offences Prevention Order restricting his use of the internet and ordered to register as a sex offender for the next five years.

When questioned after his arrest, Bruce told officers he had wanted to become a teacher, but started looking at internet porn from the age of 15 or 16 and his habit got steadily worse.

By the time of the police search raid on November 19 last year, he was on the site daily.

He kept what he was doing from his friends and had not had any actual contact with children.

Mr Chris Clark, defending, told the court: "He is a troubled young man, possibly affected by trauma in his childhood.

His offending has now stopped."