April 2016

Brighton man jailed over offences involving indecent images of children

Antony Smith, 45, currently unemployed, of Montpelier Road, Brighton, was sentenced to two and a half years imprisonment when he appeared on court bail at Lewes Crown Court on Friday (22 April), having previously pleaded guilty to three offences of making a total of 249 indecent images of children, and of distributing an indecent image of a child.

He will also be a Registered Sex Offender for life, and was given a Sexual Harm Prevention Order (SHPO) for ten years severely restricting his access to children and computers.

The prosecution followed an intelligence-led investigation by the Sussex Police Paedophile On-Line Investigation Team (POLIT) who arrested Smith at his home on 19 March 2015.

A laptop, other computer related equipment and a mobile phone were seized. He was released on police bail later that day after being interviewed.

None of the images are believed to be of local children.

Smith had also been chatting on-line to other offenders about the sexual abuse of very young children.

One of the offenders he had chatted with has since been convicted and sentenced, last year, as part of an National Crime Agency (NCA) investigation into a group of men who were sexually abusing very young children and video streaming this for other people to watch.

Although Smith was not involved in the abuse of children himself, he in effect contributed to their abuse by chatting with abusers and by downloading and distributing images of abuse of very young children