September 2015

Former teacher escapes prison for possession of child abuse images

A former teacher was found to have accessed over 500 indecent images of child abuse after police searched his home in Leeds.

Stephen Presnel, 59, was arrested after police went to his home on Raynville Road, Bramley, on July 13 last year and seized computers and other material from the property. Officers then went to his workplace in Leeds and arrested him.

During interview Presnel told officers he had been a teacher in the 1980s.

He admitted that he had been accessing the illegal images following the death of his mother in 2006.

Presnel said he had initially been interested in adult pornography but then developed an obsession for images of youngsters.

He pleaded guilty to six offences of possessing indecent images of a child. A total of 531 images and movies were discovered.

Leeds Crown Court heard 32 of the images were at category A – the most serious level of offending.

Narinder Rathour, mitigating, said Presnel had been the carer for his mother until her death and had lived an isolated existence since then.

Mr Rathour said Presnel had worked as a kitchen porter for the past 16 years but had now lost that job as a result of the convictions. Presnel was made the subject of a three-year community order during which he must take part in a sex offender treatment programme.

He was also ordered to do 100 hours unpaid work and placed on the sex offenders register for the five years.