October 2010

Justice at last for paedophile caught grooming boy for sex

A man who escaped prosecution on a “technicality” after being accused of involvement in the world’s biggest known internet paedophile ring has now been jailed for other offences.

Married father Andrew James Aspinall (51) groomed a 14-year-old schoolboy he contacted over the internet and visited him at his home in Redditch, getting as far as sitting next to the boy on his bed.

A relative of the child’s returned home, confronted Aspinall, and made him leave.

Police traced him because he gave the child his mobile phone number.

The incident happened in August last year, Leicester Crown Court was told.

Aspinall first contacted the boy through the Facebook social networking site.

As part of another investigation, officers seized Aspinall’s computer equipment and found he was downloading indecent images of children.

Police could not access one encrypted computer and Aspinall refused to give them the password – experts are still trying to find a way in to it.

He was jailed for a total of two-and-a-half years yesterday.

Aspinall admitted grooming the schoolboy, as well as 12 offences of making indecent images of children, by downloading them, between August 2009 and June 2010. He also admitted failing to disclose information in relation to the police gaining access to his computer, on July 22.

Makkan Shoker, prosecuting, said Aspinall, a father of two, had a 1988 conviction for gross indecency.

Simon Thomas, in mitigation, said he had been abused as a child and committed the offences when suffering from depression.

He added: “He’s able to appreciate the detrimental effects on those who participated in the making of the images because he’s suffered himself. He has mental health difficulties.”

Aspinall, of no fixed address, was known to have moved to Gumley, in Leicestershire, nine years ago after escaping prosecution in Scotland for previous child pornography offences.

In 2001, the Mercury reported how he was allowed to go free despite police allegedly finding 7,500 images of child pornography when they raided his Scottish home. Officers had been investigating the Wonderland Club, the world’s largest known child-porn ring.

However, when the case reached court Aspinall’s defence argued that the police search party had been illegal as it included a civilian computer technician who was not named on the warrant. The Scottish judge threw out the case. The legal loophole has since been closed.

Sentencing at Leicester Crown Court yesterday, Judge Michael Pert QC said he accepted the grooming offence stopped short of sexual activity, but added: “You went to the home of a 14-year-old boy with a view to sexual activity.”

Aspinall was banned from working with children. He was made the subject of a sexual offences prevention order, restricting his future contact with children and his computer use, which will be monitored. He will also be placed on the sex offenders’ register.