Jail for pervert who collected cache of child porn pictures
Court Reporter A PERVERT downloaded a sickening catalogue of indecent images of children - including babies being subjected to serious sex attacks.
David Howse spent three years collecting videos and photographs of youngsters being filmed carrying out “terribly degrading acts”.
A court heard he saved the material on his laptop and then made them available for others to potentially view on an online peer-to-peer app.
Newcastle Crown Court heard the age range of those featured in the moving and still images was three months to 14 years.
Now Howse has been jailed on his 54th birthday after he admitted possessing more than 3,500 of the child abuse images.
Locking him up, Judge Simon Batiste said: “There are a great number of images and they include some extremely young children and some terribly degrading acts.
“While you were sitting in front of your computer, you may have felt this was somehow a victimless crime but it’s clearly not.
“The reason children are abused in the way these children were abused is because there’s a market for people who wish to view the images. If they weren’t being viewed, the abuse would simply not take place.”
The court heard Howse had catalogued the material into a folder labelled “cp” - which prosecutors said stood for “child porn”.
They had also been added to a peer-to-peer app which would potentially allow others to access them.
Although he was not charged with distributing them, Judge Batiste said: “I’m satisfied you were aware the consequence of uploading those pictures, was they could potentially be viewed by others.
“It’s that fact that puts this into a different position to other cases that come before these courts and an immediate custodial sentence cannot be avoided.
“The message must go out that people who allow others to view these sickening images will go to prison.”
Police went to Howse’s home on Edinburgh Court, Kingston Park, Newcastle, in August last year and seized his laptop.
On it were 207 of the most serious, category A images, 444 category B and 3,072 category C images.
Prosecutor Emma Dowling said: “Children were being abused both by adult males and females.”
One movie showed a six-monthold baby being subjected to a serious sex attack by a man.
Howse admitted three counts of making indecent images of children and one of possessing prohibited pseudo images of a child - a cartoon of a seven-year-old.
He was jailed for 20 months and made subjected to a sexual harm prevention order and sex offender registration for 10 years.
Mark Harrison, defending, said Howse wants and has sought assistance for his problem and has been undergoing self-help treatment.
He has, until now, worked in a shop which sells guns and other items and previously worked in the recruitment business, the court heard.
Mr Harrison said that Howse has lived an isolated existence over the course of the last few years and the viewing of lawful pornography “became more prevalent and desensitisation followed which led him to the margins of what is acceptable and well beyond it”.
He added: “He acknowledges what relationship he has had with his family is almost certainly irretrievably broken as a result of his conduct.
“His standing in the community is damaged significantly by his own misbehaviour.
“He accepts his life will never be the same again because of his own behaviour. He gives an unconditional apology to all.”