July 2015

York man sentenced over indecent images

A RETIRED company director is today a convicted sex offender after pleading guilty to possessing indecent images of boys.

York police found indecent images of children on John William Rootes’ laptop and home computer, Hannah Lynch, prosecuting, told York Crown Court.

They also found details of a Skype conversation in which he had talked about visiting swimming pool changing rooms to watch boys showering.

Rootes claimed the conversation was about fantasies which he had never intended to carry out.

The officers were following up a tip-off from Canadian police that Rootes, 77, had bought DVDs of naked teenage boys from a website they were investigating.

Kevin Blount, defending, said Rootes had a “long-term interest in naturism and has been involved in that activity”. He wasn’t interested sexually in boys or children, but only in nudity, he said.

The DVDs he bought had been legal and most of the website’s naturism films were legal. But it also sold illegal films of children which sparked the police investigation. 

Rootes, of St Andrewgate, central York, pleaded guilty to ten charges of possessing indecent images of boys and was given a six-month prison sentence, suspended for two years.

He was put on the sex offenders’ register for seven years and made subject to a sexual harm prevention order curbing his use of the Internet and contact with children for five years.

He must also pay £425 prosecution costs.

Judge Guy Kearl QC told Rootes about the illegal images found on his computers: “This sort of offence is aimed at preventing the exploitation of young children in both a sexual and a physical manner. It is the continued peddling of images of this nature which creates the market for the continued exploitation of children.”