March 1999

Perverted teacher had indecent images of children

A FORMER Midland head teacher has been fined £1,000 after police uncovered a secret stash of computer child sexual abuse images at his home.

Donal Thurlow, whose “demons from his past” fuelled his downfall after he suffered prolonged sexual abuse as a child, posed as a 15-year-old boy in an Internet chat room.

He set up a liaison with a Northamptonshire man who was interested in children.

Owen Beale, prosecuting, told magistrates that when police discovered 77 pictures on Thurlow’s computer following a raid on his Hennals Avenue home, in Redditch, he said he was trying to understand why adults abused children.

Thurlow was a teacher at the Roman Catholic school of St Bede’s

Magistrates fined Thurlow (50), ordered him to pay £54 costs and register as a sex offender with police after he admitted possession of the computer images.