March 2003

Jail for paedophile Pc

FORMER Worksop police officer Christopher Lilley has been jailed for one year for building a vile library of child porn.

The married father admitted storing more than 1,000 sick images of child abuse and sex acts, involving hundreds of children, on his home computer in Mansfield Woodhouse.

Christopher Lilley altered photos of a colleague’s little girl to satisfy his vile lust.

He doctored the innocent snaps with a computer to make her appear naked.

Lilley also secretly filmed children walking down his road and changed those pictures in a similar way.

Dad Lilley, 33, built an obscene library of 1,000 child porn photos and 26 video clips, a court heard.

Many were downloaded from porn websites and showed children engaged in sex acts with young adults. Some of the tots in “erotic” poses were just four years old.

The married PC with the Nottinghamshire force carefully filed the images using the codes PT for pre-teenagers and YT for young teens.

Sentencing him at Derby Crown Court yesterday Judge Granville Styler told the former police officer: “You are sexually attracted to children and you pose a continuing danger to children.”

Lilley, 33, of Sherwood Rise, admitted 14 separate charges of taking indecent photos of children between November 1997 and last September.

The Pc, who had been in the Notts force for 12 years and had been based at Worksop before moving to the Ollerton response unit, had carefully categorised his collection, which included videos of children filmed in his street.

Prosecutor Gillian Foxcroft said Lilley had told investigating officers he did it because he was ‘sad, sick and stupid.’

She added Lilley’s actions showed a progressive development from downloading from the Internet to videoing and creating his own images.

But Rupert Mayo, defending, said the worst of the images had been stored on an old computer that had become a ‘ticking time bomb’ before his arrest.

“His direction into depravity has not got deeper, it has got shallower. He had images of a disgusting nature but he disposed of those,” he said.

Mr Mayo said Lilley was of good character, had put his life on the line for fellow citizens as a policeman, and had the motivation to change.

He said the policeman had helped his family after losing an elderly sister to illness and following the suicide of another family member. Lilley’s wife, parents and friends had written letters to the court in his defence.

Judge Styler jailed Lilley for 12 months and gave him an extended concurrent sentence of four years. He will also have to sign the sex offender’s register for 10 years.