March 2012

Postal worker Patrick Conway had obscene child pictures

A POSTAL worker who allowed other people to access indecent images of children on his computer via popular internet chat services has been given a suspended prison sentence.

Patrick John Conway, 27, placed obscene images of children on three general interactive websites, including Yahoo’s Messenger, through file-sharing software on his computer, Helen Wheatley, prosecuting, told York Crown Court.

When police raided his then home in Malvern Avenue, Acomb, after a tip-off from the Child Online Exploitation and Protection Unit, they found 950 obscene photos of children and eight films of similar material on his home computer.

Recorder Mark Cran QC, who viewed a sample of the images, told Conway: “These are, as you well know, truly horrible pictures and videos.

“It is perfectly obvious these children have been subjected to the most appalling abuse in the making of these photographs. I think you now recognise that.”

He gave Conway a 12-month prison sentence, suspended for two years on condition he does two years’ supervision, 150 hours’ unpaid work and goes on a sex offender treatment programme.

He also disqualified Conway from ever working with children and made him subject to a sexual offences prevention order that will prohibit him from using any device that can access the internet unless he allows police to check its history and contents.

Conway will be on the sex offenders register for ten years.

Parcelforce employee Conway, of Pinsent Court, off Huntington Road, York, pleaded guilty to ten counts of possessing indecent images and one of making 890 of the 950 images available to others to view.

Ms Wheatley said 164 of the pictures and five of the videos were hard core. She gave details of a chat room conversation about the images on the file-sharing software which the judge described as “innocuous”.

For Conway, Andrew Semple said his client expected to lose his job over his conviction. He had not actually distributed the images and gained no commercial advantage through his actions.

Before his offences, he had had a good character, the court heard.