Leeds PhD graduate downloaded 40,000 indecent images of children
A Leeds PhD graduate who downloaded nearly 40,000 indecent images of children has been jailed.
Police found the still and moving images on John Embery’s laptop and hard drives in August 2018.
He had been given a suspended prison sentence in 2012 after being convicted of 21 counts of making indecent images of children.
Prosecutor Bashir Ahmed said the defendant immediately told officers when they executed a search warrant at his flat on Alma Road in Headingley that he had downloaded indecent images again.
Embery was arrested and taken to a police station.
A laptop and two hard drives were seized.
More than a year passed before a forensic report was produced.
Of 39,498 images, 101 were in category A and 138 in category B while the rest were in category C.
Embery also had four images of extreme pornography and one prohibited image depicting a child.
The children in the images were aged between five and 15.
Leeds Crown Court heard the images dated back to 2007 but Embery said he only started downloading them in 2013 or 2014.
The 50-year-old was not charged until earlier this year.
In his police interview, he accepted that he had downloaded the images but he said he was attracted to photos of children, not children themselves.
Embery pleaded guilty to three counts of making indecent images of children, one count of possession of extreme pornography and one count of possessing a prohibited image of a child.
Embery was jailed for nine months.
Sentencing, Judge Simon Phillips QC said: “Accessing images of this type perpetuates the sexual abuse of children.”
