Dudley pensioner with thousands of child sex abuse images spared jail
A perverted pensioner who downloaded thousands of images of children as young as three being sexually abused has been spared jail so that he can receive treatment.
Police discovered the images on the computer equipment of 68-year-old David Evans when they raided his home in Vicarage Prospect, Dudley on July 2 last year, a judge heard.
Officers made the grim find after checking the contents of three USB memory sticks, the same number of laptops, a computer tower and an external hard drive taken from his house, Wolverhampton Crown Court was told.
They swooped after a tip off that somebody at the address had been accessing indecent images of children, explained Mr Neil Ahuja, prosecuting, who stressed there was no evidence of the defendant distributing the images to other people.
Evans admitted six charges of making indecent images of children between January 1 2011 and July 2 2014 and also pleaded guilty to a further offence of having extreme pornographic material on July 2.
Judge Martin Walsh told him: "This is not a victimless crime. The images show real children being subjected to really gross abuse and it is people like you who feed the pernicious trade of this foul material."
But the judge added: "If I sent you into custody it would not be of sufficient length for you to take part in the sex offender prevention programme and the only way to enable the therapeutic services to work with you is through a community sentence. That is in the best interests of the public."
Evans received a community order under supervision for three years on condition he attends the sex offender prevention programme. He must also pay £500 towards the cost of the case.
