Pervert must admit interest in children
ACYBER creep has been given a chance to work out if he is sexually interested in children after he was caught with a haul of ‘dreadful’ abuse images.
Neil Anthony Carson, 38, of Masseyfield Road, Brookvale, appeared at Chester Crown Court last Thursday, November 21, where he was due to be sentenced for three counts of making indecent images and one overarching possession charge.
Carson had pleaded guilty on October 24 last month, the day he was due to face trial, to the offences having denied them previously.
Anna Price, prosecuting, told the court the images of abuse were all still photographs.
Eight were of the most serious type, in Category A, and involved victims as young as two to three years of age being seriously sexually assaulted.
There were 18 in Category B, and 741 in Category C.
In one of the worst images, the victim had been made to wear a mask.
Judge Patrick Thompson, presiding, said the nature of the offending ‘turns me cold’.
Police searched Carson’s home on November 6, 2017, after learning that a suspicious image had been uploaded to the internet.
His laptop and computer tower were seized.
He denied any wrongdoing when interviewed.
Specialist software was used to retrieve the images, which had been stashed away as deleted and ‘unallocated’ files.
They also found his hardware had been used to visit websites such as ‘Lolita Castle’, and conversations with other disturbed users.
He claimed he looked at pornography and sometimes images would popup and he ‘would look at it and know he shouldn’t be looking at it’ then try to delete it.
Another interview took place in 2018 after the stash of depraved images had been retrieved, and Carson denied having seen them.
He pleaded guilty on the day of trial.
Last Thursday, Judge Thompson raised concerns that Carson ‘emphatically denies any sexual interest in children’ and warned he would go to prison if he could not admit the problem, which would be necessary to be eligible for treatment or a rehabilitation ment.
Otherwise, the pre-sentence report warned that any attempt at rehabilitation would be a ‘fruitless’ exercise.
David Watts, appearing on behalf of Carson, said character references had been presented and that a report had said that it was ‘not uncommon’ for perpetrators to begin the process of dealing with their inclinations from the point of denial.
Judge Thompson adjourned the case for two weeks to December 6 and reserved it for himself, thus giving two weeks for the defendant to consider whether he can admit his problem.
He said providing the chance of taking part in rehabilitation was the best way to protect the public, but it cannot be undertaken without the defendant taking the first step of admitting their problem. require
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Judge Thompson said: “I’m not impressed with your attitude in the presentence report.
“These offences carry a prison sentence and it seems to me, my role is to protect the public as much as I can, to protect children.
“It seems a fruitless exercise to have anything other than a custodial sentence if your attitude is you have no sexual interest in children.
“I should give you another opportunity.”
Similar previous cases have often heard that defendants given short prison sentences are not eligible for sex offender treatment and rehabilitation programmes so they present a conundrum for the courts because if sent down, they will not have access to courses and might remain more of a risk upon release than if had undergone some form of rehabilitation.