July 2003

Craven man admits child abuse images charges

THREE hundred and ninety two pornographic images of children have been found on a High Bentham man’s computer.

Malcolm Tony Hague, 59, of Mount Pleasant, was caught in possession of the images as part of the worldwide Operation Ore investigation.

It is tracing in excess of 7,000 people who are thought to have paid to download indecent images of children made accessible on the internet by an American company.

Hague pleaded guilty at Skipton Magistrates’ Court on Friday to one count of possessing indecent photos on November 22 2002 and 10 counts of making indecent photos between February 26 1997 and November 22 2002.

Prosecutor Mike Hammond said the 10 counts of making the images were charges selected by police as representative of the content of the 392 pictures.

He said the defendant was found to have once paid to access the site on August 2 1999. Inquiries led police to the defendant and they executed a search and seized computer equipment from his home on November 22.

In interview Hague confirmed that the credit card details given to access the site were his and he admitted having downloaded pornographic material involving children. But he denied paying for the child pornography.

The 392 images were found on his computer systems, on two loose hard drives and six disks.

Mr Hammond said that all images found as part of Operation Ore were measured on the Copine Scale which runs from one to five, with one being the least indecent and five the most.

All of the images found in Hague’s possession were found to be between one and four. Some of the images showed children engaging in sexual activity with adults and with other children.

Police also discovered that the defendant had a device on one of his computer systems called an evidence eliminator which was designed to remove this sort of images from the hard disks and make them untraceable.

On May 30 the defendant was interviewed again and admitted that the images had been downloaded.

Mr Hammond said that when asked why he wanted to view these sorts of images Hague said he had been “fascinated” and in some cases “horrified” by them. He said that sometimes shocking images attracted people.

On June 16 he was charged with all 11 offences.