Locations
Wryneck Close, Southampton, Hampshire, SO16
Description
A PAEDOPHILE found with more than 70,000 indecent images of children covertly filmed an elderly woman using the toilet, a court heard.
Ronald Dear placed the camera inside the victim’s toilet while he was decorating a home in Southampton.
The 60-year-old’s four year reign of viewing of illegal and explicit pornography was ended after police received reports he had downloaded an single indecent image of a child, Southampton Crown Court was told.
When police searched his computer equipment they found thousands of moving and still images, including many that prosecutor Martyn Booth described as “depicting the most serious type of images you could imagine”.
Also found were two videos of the elderly victim on the toilet, which were made around 10 years ago.
Mr Booth said that some of the images involved children as young as three months old “crying in pain” from the abuse they were subjected to.
After he was arrested on July 2, 2017, Dear gave a no-comment interview but did state he was not attracted to children – a claim labelled “ludicrous” by Mr Booth.
The images were found on a number of devices, which, when examined, revealed he had been downloading images since September 2013.
The court heard that Dear, previously of good character, was also attracted to older women and would use the ‘dark web’ to access material.
Dear pleaded guilty to three counts of possessing indecent images, ranging between categories A to C, and a charge of voyeurism when he appeared for the first time at Southampton Magistrates’ Court in April.
Susan Ridge, mitigating, said Dear was at “a low risk of reoffending” and had “suffered with depression after struggling to cope with the arrest and the reality of what he has done”.
Judge Christopher Parker QC said that due to the “seriousness” and “huge” amount of images and his acts of voyeurism, he had no option but to send Dear immediately to prison.
Dear, of Wryneck Close, Southampton, was jailed for 44 months imprisonment. He was also made the subject of a sexual harm prevention order indefinitely and will have to notify the police of any changes to his address for the remainder of his life.