Court

Child Sex Image Pervert Offends 13 Days After Release
Thur 25th April 2013 , Yellow Advertiser

A MAN who amassed the second-largest collection of child sex abuse images ever seized by UK police breached his licence conditions less than two weeks after his release from prison.

Stephen Clark, 59, of Friern Gardens in Wickford – who was jailed in May 2011 for downloading almost 5million illegal images – breached a Sexual Offences Prevention Order just 13 days after being released on licence.

The order banned Clark from using the internet on any computer which did not have monitoring software on it. However, police caught him with a computer hooked up to the internet during an unannounced visit to his home.

He admitted the breach at Basildon Magistrates Court last week.

Clark was sentenced to 30 months in prison in May 2011 after pleading guilty to nine counts of downloading and sharing extreme pornography and child sex images.

A self-employed computer systems analyst, he traded the images using a 'very sophisticated computer set-up' and told cops he had used his expertise to hide his crimes from his wife and children.

He told police he had collected the images for 20 years as a 'hobby' but said it had 'become an obsession'.

He told cops: “It's a bit like collecting cigarette cards or snuff boxes or something like that. I call it a library.”

He was arrested in September 2009 after a German police investigation found his computer had accessed a website containing child abuse images.

When cops swooped on his house at the time, he told them: “I'll put my hands up. I'll come clean. I've got a problem. I collected. It doesn't hurt anyone.”

Clark's three computers were still uploading and downloading illegal images when police arrived to arrest him in 2009.

When interviewed by police, he maintained that downloading and sharing child sex images were victimless crimes.

Analysis of the computers at the time found 4.6million illegal images.

Clark, who lived in Brentwood before he was jailed, appeared at Basildon Magistrates Court on Thursday, April 18, to admit breaching his Sexual Offences Prevention Order.

The court heard Clark originally claimed a probation officer had told him he was allowed to hook the computer up to the internet, but admitted this was untrue when he heard the claim would be tested in a trial of issue.

A defence lawyer for Clark said the breach had been a 'complete oversight' and could be dealt with by a Magistrates Court.

However, District Judge John Woollard told Clark he did not feel he had sufficient powers to deal with such a serious breach.

He referred the case to Crown Court, where Clark will be sentenced in May.

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