Paedophile who called himself 'Oldperv' shared child abuse images
A man who posted 1,174 images of child abuse and six indecent video clips on to a website walked free from court after a judge was told about his wife's poor health.
Andrew Waddell-Tillbrook, of Park Road, Netherton, Dudley, was made the subject of a three-year supervision order with a requirement to take part in a sex-offenders' programme when he appeared before Wolverhampton Crown Court on Monday.
The 61-year-old self-employed IT worker was also ordered to register as a sex offender for five years and was disqualified from working with children for the same period.
The court was told that at a previous hearing, Waddell-Tillbrook admitted five counts of distributing child porn, and five further counts of possessing indecent images of children.
Miss Laura Culley, prosecuting, said officers visited his property on October 27, 2011, and seized various items of computer equipment.
Two of these contained indecent images of children, she said.
Miss Culley said on the one computer device, a Maxtor hard drive, it was discovered that pictures had been loaded on to the Gigatribe file-sharing website, which allowed other people to access them if they were issued with a password.
She said an account had been registered under the username 'Oldperv'. There was also evidence of online communications where Waddell-Tillbrook had shared his password with other users.
Miss Culley said Waddell-Tillbrook was interviewed on three separate occasions, and consistently denied being interested in child porn. He initially said he might have accidentally downloaded the images while looking for adult porn, she added.
She said that 1,174 indecent images of children and six film clips were found on the Maxtor hard drive, and of these 34 were at level five – the highest level – and 340 at level four, the second highest.
Mr Tom Walkling, defending, said
in admitting his guilt, Waddell-Tillbrook had made the first step towards his rehabilitation. "These offences are nearly three years old, and in the three years since he had not committed any further offences," said Mr Walkling. He added that Waddell-Tillbrook's wife of 35 years was extremely ill, having undergone heart surgery and spinal and abdominal treatment. "She relies on my client for support," said Mr Walkling.
Sentencing, Judge Alan Parker told Waddell-Tillbrook his behaviour was 'utterly repellant' but he took his wife's illness into account.
