Glazing firm boss had child abuse images
A MARRIED man leading a respectable life as a senior manager for a well-known double-glazing firm spent more than a decade secretly viewing pictures and videos of young children being sexually abused.
Police found almost 500 images on a laptop and iphone belonging to 65-year-old Colin James after executing a search warrant at his house.
Some of the images had been downloaded the day before the officers knocked on his door.
Megan Jones, prosecuting, told Swansea Crown Court that police went to James’ house shortly before 7.30am on January 19 last year after receiving information that an indecent image had been uploaded using a Skype account connected to an IP or internet protocol address linked to the property.
The court heard that when police told the defendant why they were there, he replied: “That was me, I did it.”
James’ laptop computer and iphone were seized, and a forensic examination of the devices found a total of 485 photos and videos of children as young as six being being sexually abused and raped.
The images had been created over a period of 13 years, with the most recent being downloaded the day before the police knocked at the defendant’s door.
Colin Michael James, of Glanymor Park Drive, Loughor, had previously pleaded guilty to three counts of making indecent images of Category A, B and C when he appeared in the dock for sentencing. He has no previous convictions.
Thomas Stanway, for James, said the defendant had voluntarily been working with a charity to address the reasons for his offending, and had a supportive wife and network around him.
He said his client had a managerial role in the double-glazing firm Securahome – a company he had been with for some 23 years – and he would lose that employment if he were to go straight into custody.
Recorder Carl Harrison told James that “year after year” he had been looking at images of children being sexually abused while concealing his “dark past” from everybody around him, including his wife.
He said he had read a number of references written to the court on the defendant’s behalf, including a “particularly powerful” letter from his spouse in which she explained she had not known how to react when the truth emerged but had eventually decided to stand by her husband.
The judge said he accepted James was remorseful for what he had done, and he noted the defendant had accepted in his probation interview that he had gained sexual gratification from the images – an important first step in rehabilitation.
With a one-third discount for his guilty pleas, James was sentenced to 10 months in prison, suspended for two years, and was ordered to complete a rehabilitation course and 120 hours of unpaid work.
The defendant was made the subject of a 10-year sexual harm prevention order to control his access to the internet, and will be a registered sex offender for same length of time.