A PERVERT who admitted possessing indecent computer images and videos of children as young as three has been jailed for eight months.
David Beard, 32, was caught with six photographs and 21 movies – including many of the highest level of seriousness – showing the explicit sexual abuse of children.
Acting on intelligence, police attended his address in June 2009 and seized computer equipment. The equipment contained 27 indecent photos and movies, which had been collected over a period of about a year and 10 months.
Beard was jailed for eight months and placed on the sex offenders’ register for 10 years.
Hannah Squire, prosecuting, said: “The defendant was interviewed about the 27 images and movies in December 2010 and he accepted that he alone was responsible for the material that was downloaded and saved onto his computer.”
The court heard that Beard accepted that the movies were lengthy and reflected a significant amount of child abuse and that the file names were indicative of child abuse.
Twenty-one of the photographs and movies featured children aged under 13, including a lot of children aged between three and five
Of the 21 movies, many of which ran for several minutes, there were four at the most serious level and 16 at the second most serious level.
One movie lasted for 29 minutes 23 seconds and was a compilation showing more than 30 children engaged in a variety of sexually abusive acts.
“He could offer no explanation as to why he would have downloaded files with those titles. He told the interviewer he had no interest in children,” she said.
“His excuse in interview was that it was down to stupidity rather than any sexual interest in children.”
Beard, of Kent Road, Old Town, pleaded guilty to one charge of possessing indecent images of children and three charges of making indecent images of children at Swindon Magistrates Court at the beginning of March.
Matthew Scott, defending, said that Beard had lost his job when the matters became public and asked for Beard to be given credit for his early guilty plea.
In his summing up, Judge Douglas Field said that the fact the court was dealing with so many images made him conclude that Beard should be given a custodial sentence.
“In my judgement those movies represent a considerably lengthy quantity of indecent images,” he said.
“They have involved different children and they are of a considerable length.”
