Man, 34, had shock child abuse video
JON MACPHERSON
AMAN who was caught with a shocking video of a restrained eight-year-old girl being raped has avoided jail.
Paul Goddard, 34, of Wellington Street, Accrington, has been blasted by the judge after he told the probation service that he ‘couldn’t see a reason not to like it’ and claimed the victims ‘weren’t forced to do it’.
Police executed a warrant at his home on October 23, 2014 and seized a mobile phone containing the video and four other indecent images of children, Burnley Crown Court heard. He pleaded guilty to possessing indecent images of children and was given a 10-month jail sentence, suspended for two years with a supervision order and a sex offender treatment programme requirement.
He was also given a sexual harm prevention order and made subject to police notification requirements for 10 years.
William Donnelly, prosecuting, told the court: “There were something in the order of 50 images on there.
“The legal position is that if the images on the phone are beyond the recovery of anybody but an expert, such that advanced software is required to recover the images, then they are not in the control, custody and therefore possession of the defendant and hence the number of images came down.”
The court heard how Goddard told the probation service that he had ‘no sexual interest in children’ and later said he ‘saw children with smiles and didn’t see any hurt or pain on their faces’.
Ken Hind, defending, said Goddard has schizophrenia and paranoia, a diagnosed with a personality disorder and is a ‘low risk of re-offending’.
He told the court: “His explanation is it started off with him being curious and looking for sexual images of mature women and then these other sites came up and he followed them out of curiosity.
“There doesn’t seem to be any suggestion he has pursued these images in the suggestion of grooming or making contact over the internet via chat rooms, it’s purely and simply visual images and they are limited in number.
“He now understands that of course if there were no viewers there would be no victims and these children are subject to this sort of behaviour purely and simply because out there are people who will actually view them.
“Perhaps this is one of those cases where it’s been stopped before it could escalate any further.”