Vulnerable Client Receives Suspended Sentence for possession of over 400 indecent and prohibited Images

Our client was a man of good character charged with 3 counts of making indecent images, contrary to section 1 and 6 of the Protection of Children Act, and 1 count of possession of prohibited images of a child, contract to sections 62 and 66 of the Coroner and Justice Act.

The incident arose after police carried out a search of his home address following intelligence that an illegal image has been uploaded from this address. During the search a laptop was seized, and our client admitted that this device was his and contained indecent images of children. 

The police downloaded the contents of the laptop’s hard drive and found 402 illegal images. 57 of these were the most serious form of category A, which included 39 moving images. The remainder were a mixture of Category B, C and prohibited images. At his first hearing, our client entered guilty pleas to all counts.

Ahead of sentence, we gathered a mass of mitigation. This included reading and summarising hundreds of pages of medical records. Our client suffered from mobility issues, a myriad of health conditions, and was severely agoraphobic. He therefore struggled to leave the house and could not care for himself. To prevent unnecessary, physically and mentally challenging Court appearances for our client, we requested the Court administratively adjourn his case until both his pre-sentence report and a draft sexual harm prevention order were available. The Court agreed to this adjournment, and we continued to chase these documents ahead of sentence.

At his sentence hearing, after consideration of all documentation put forward, our client’s good character, early admissions, and his wife’s character reference, the Judge sentenced our client to 6 months imprisonment suspended for 18 months, including 30 days of rehabilitation activity requirement. This was an excellent result given the numerous charges and the extremity and number of images found. Our client and his wife were extremely pleased, writing:

“…thank you all so much for the way you dealt with my case, without all of you I would not be home now. I owe you all so much so thank you all again…”

Phoebe Coleman was the solicitor with conduct of this case. She was assisted by her paralegal, Natasha Hardaker, and instructed Grace Khaile of Mountford Chambers.