February 2015

Mynydd Isa pervert secretly filmed stepdaughter schoolgirl in bath and on toilet

A railway engineer secretly filmed his 15-year-old stepdaughter undressing, washing and going to the toilet, a court heard today.

Martyn Darlington spied on Jade Walsh using cameras he set up in her bedroom and the bathroom of the family home in Rhyl, North Wales. 

The court heard that police found 38 video files of the schoolgirl, which all appeared to have been taken at a time when she was around 15 years of age.

The 39-year-old was today jailed for 14 months at Mold Crown Court after he admitted building up a collection of more than 25,000 indecent photographs and videos of children as young as six.

Prosecuting barrister Karl Scholz said 105,000 more images were found which involved scantily clad young girls in bikinis and underwear but which were not subject to criminal charges.

There were also 365 videos and the prosecutor said that 183 stills and 82 films were at the worst category A.

Hehad 38 films which related to the teenage girl he had recorded using covert cameras.

Darlington, of Penymaes, Mynydd Isa near Mold, was jailed for eight months after he admitted three charges of voyeurism dating back to 2013 — with a consecutive six-month sentence for 14 offences of possessing indecent still and movie images of children.

He was ordered to register as a sex offender for 10 years and he was made the subject of a 10-year SOPO (sexual offences prevention order) to curb his future use of the internet and his contact with youngsters.

Mr Scholz said Darlington’s partner became concerned at the amount of time he appeared to spend alone behind his computer screen and when he was out, she got friends around to help her see what he had stored in various files and folders.

The indecent images downloaded from the internet were found, the police were called and he was arrested.

He admitted downloading images from the internet for some four years.

Guy Dodd, defending, said that his client was a man of no previous convictions of exemplary character who had worked throughout his life.

He was a land surveyor and railway construction engineer who had worked away a lot during the week and at weekends.

“My client does not wish to make excuses,” he said.

But by the nature of his employment he felt very lonely and isolated, had little or no sex life, he started to look at adult porn, and stumbled across a site which featured child porn.

He realised that he should have stopped at that stage but stupidly began to look at the images on a fairly regular basis.

“He did not initially think that he was doing anything seriously wrong.”

Mr Dodd said his client had not bought cameras specifically for the voyeurism offences but said he already had them to fit on to remote control cars.

The judge said that he had to take account the “quite unacceptable” delay in the case because the defendant had been arrested and admitted what he had done in October 2013, but it had taken a long time to get to court.

He had filmed a schoolgirl for his own sexual gratification.

Judge Rowlands said that it had been “a pretty vast collection” of images of some very young children.

“On any view, this was quite depraved behaviour on your part,” the judge said.

It was aggravated by the fact that the victims in the some of the sexual abuse images from the internet were very young and some were “particularly bad”.

On the schoolgirls 16th birthday, a camera which had been installed pointing towards her bed, was discovered.

Her mother confronted Darlington about it, and he claimed it had been put there to ‘check she was not being sexually active with any boyfriends that might come round’.

He disconnected the camera, but retained the memory card which contained videos of the girl, the court heard.

Referring to a victim impact statement written by the girl, Mr Scholz said she questioned what his motives might really have been in the period of time she lived with him when she might have given him a kiss or a hug.

The court heard how Darlington, a railway construction engineer, also subscribed to paying websites which allowed him to access images of children.

This material included photographs of girls as young as six, some naked and some in bikinis and underwear, posing provocatively.

Defending Darlington, Guy Dodd said: ‘He was a man of exemplary previous character. That was until he developed an extremely unhealthy interest in internet porn over four years.

‘He spent most of the week, and some of the weekends, away from home and did feel very isolated and lonely on occasions.

‘He had little or no active sex life due to the nature of his job and having to work away and this led to him looking at adult porn sites which in the end became pretty obsessive

‘He stumbled across a site that featured a child pornographic image. He realises he should have stopped at that point and not taken it any further.

‘All this became fairly normalised in his mind. He didn’t think he was doing anything seriously wrong.’

Darlington admitted three counts of voyeurism and 14 counts of possessing indecent images of children.

Judge Rhys Rowlands described his behaviour as ‘serious and disturbing’ and ordered him to sign the sex offenders register as well as making him subject to a ten-year sexual offences prevention order.

Jailing Darlington, the judge said: ‘In any view this was utter depraved behaviour on your part.

‘On examination of the material from your home revealed a vast collection of photographs and videos of young children and your step daughter in her home, dressing, washing and using the toilet.

‘You treated her as your daughter and she treated you as her father. I’m dealing with a very bad breach of trust.’

Speaking after the case, Ms Walsh said: ‘I’m livid with the sentence. He should have got five to ten years. It’s definitely not long enough after everything he’s put our family through.’