A sex offender who used his friend’s computer to download child porn because he did not have the internet at his own house was jailed for nine months yesterday.
Stephen Gale, 39, combed the net for pictures of young boys then copied them to CDs which he hid around the house he shared with his elderly mother.
Jobless Gale would travel to his friend’s house in Streatham armed with floppy disks in order to save the sordid images.
Southwark Crown Court heard he then used his laptop to view the images for “sexual stimulation”.
Police raided Gale’s friend’s house on September 5 last year after the address was linked with child porn websites.
The computer was seized and officers discovered a number of images that Gale had tried to delete.
He later attended the police station with a letter confessing he was responsible for the material and admitting he had more at his home in Balfour Gardens, Ealing.
Isobel Ascherson, prosecuting, said: “During his interview he stated it was purely voyeuristic, sexually stimulating but voyeuristic, and he had not been in contact with any children.
“He stated he was interested in boys aged between 14 and 18.”
She added: “He told the police he had saved ‘loads’ of images and had been collecting them for four or five years, had been saving them for two years and had about 30 discs.”
The court heard Gale had a total of 1,241 images and films, including one of a four-year-old boy being raped by an adult.
Of those images, 13 were deemed to be of the most serious level – depicting children being subjected to acts of sadomasochism and bestiality.
In his defence, Gale claimed he had been suffering from depression at the time and was seeking help to combat his problem.
Locking him up for nine months, Judge Andrew Goymer said: “These are appalling images and although the defendant was not responsible for the production of them it has to be remembered that every time one of these images is produced and downloaded somewhere in the world a child is being subjected to horrific sexual abuse.”
His name was added to the sex offenders’ register for five years and he was made subject to a sexual offences prevention order for 10 years which banned him from using the internet for anything other than work.
He was also banned from working with children indefinitely.
Gale pleaded guilty to 13 counts of making indecent images of children and two counts of having indecent images of children.
