Locations
Beetham Tower, Liverpool, L3
Description
A paedophile ex-vicar once caught with a shoebox full of kid's clothes is back in jail for the third time after watching children as young as five being raped.
Paul Battersby, 72, formerly of Liverpool, scoured the internet for the sick material and downloaded more than 800 indecent images, all while he was under a court order designed to curb his online activity.
The twice-married former Church of England clergyman, who worked for the church for 31 years, built up a sordid collection of 832 images, some of which included the rape of children aged between five and 10, York Crown Court heard.
Prosecutor Lucy Brown said some of the images featured children as young as two.
Battersby, who was a chemistry teacher in Liverpool before he took the cloth and once worked with Amnesty International, also viewed images of bestiality and tried to hide his crimes using special software.
But he was caught out for the fourth time in 13 years when police searched his new home in Skipton, North Yorkshire, in October last year.
Officers seized his computer equipment including a laptop, on which they found the offending material.
Battersby - formerly of Birkenhead, and Liverpool City Centre - was arrested and charged with three counts of making indecent images of children, one count of possessing extreme pornography including videos, breaching a sexual-harm prevention order and a further count of possessing 205 prohibited or cartoon images of children.
He admitted all charges and appeared for sentence via video link on Tuesday after being remanded in custody.
In 2008, Battersby - a former national youth officer with the Church of England who at the time was vicar of St Ambrose Church in Leyland - received a suspended prison sentence at Preston Crown Court for possessing very disturbing images of children after being turned in by his wife.
In 2010, he was jailed again after police found 160 obscene images of children on his laptop which had been used to organise missions for the Church of England.
Battersby - said to have "fantasies about pre-pubescent girls"- was to serve more jail time for similar offences including in 2017 when he was jailed for 20 months at Liverpool Crown Court for downloading 1,730 indecent images of children and extreme animal pornography.
At the time of those offences, Battersby was living in a luxury flat, funded by the Church of England, in Liverpools Beetham Tower, where police also found a shoebox full of childrens clothing.
Among the sick files found on his computer equipment was a horrifying movie of a girl being bound and raped.
Battersby had also written a twisted child-sex-abuse fantasy starring himself.
After being released from that prison sentence, Battersby - who was already estranged from his two ex-wives and ostracised by his family and the Church of England - moved to Skipton where he lived alone.
The father-of-two, described as highly intelligent, was on the sex offenders register and subject to a court order designed to limit his internet activity but could not stop himself re-offending.
The protection officers who were monitoring his online activity made an impromptu visit to his home and found hundreds of vile images on his laptop, as well as cleaning software and a special browser.
Helen Chapman, defending Battersby, said the ex-ministers complicated and deeply embedded behaviour had cost him two marriages and he had no contact whatsoever with his second family.
Judge Simon Hickey told Battersby that his deliberate and calculated use of the wiping and browsing software and the vast number of images shed light on the ex-vicars determination to pursue your perversion in looking up these images.
Judge Hickey said: You say you want to change I find that difficult to accept given your deeply embedded behaviour and your deliberate flouting of court orders."
The judge said he regarded Battersby as a danger to children who presented a significant risk of committing similar crimes in the future.
Battersby was jailed for four years with an extended three year licence period upon his eventual release from custody.
He was also ordered to sign on the sex-offenders register for life and made subject to a new sexual-harm prevention order, which will also run for an indefinite period.