Child sex images man spared jail

AMAN caught with thousands of indecent images of children has avoided a jail sentence.

William Paul John Roderick was at his home on January 23 when a search warrant was carried out by South Wales Police , who were looking for computer equipment which might contain indecent images of children.

He was at home with his wife at the time, whom he turned to whilst the search was being carried out and said: “I have ruined our lives.”

He also made further comments of: “I stopped for years. It was just an addiction, I tried to stop.”

He also told officers: “I can show you where they are. I copied them onto an external hard drive.”

Analysis of devices showed that between January 14, 2008, and December 21, 2017, there were a total of 15,784 images.

Pictures found on the system were 1,687 from category A – the worst kind, along with 1,629 category B, and 1,258 from category C.

Movies of children had also been downloaded. From April 13, 2008, to January 22, 2018, 920 were found. These were made up of 635 from category A, 209 from category B and 76 from category C. There were also ‘unique’ images discovered from January 12, 2009, to December 18, 2017, of cartoon and CGI videos, two bestiality images, and 36 bestiality videos.

Roderick pleaded guilty to the offences of possessing indecent images and appeared before Swansea Crown Court for sentencing yesterday.

The 46-year-old, of Bryn Eithin, Gowerton, Swansea, told police he used ‘eMule’ as a sharing platform to download the images.

Judge Thomas said: “You have little or no understanding of the seriousness of such offending.

“These are images of real children being abused.”

Roderick was given a three-year community order with a requirement to attend a Horizon programme, designed for sex offenders.

A forfeiture and destruction order was made for the computer equipment, and a sexual offences prevention order was also made.