Description
A PERVERT music teacher who kept a vast collection of indecent images of children was caught after accidentally posting a picture of naked girls on the social media site Pintres.
Kenneth Nelson, 55, was investigated after officers received a tip-off from the national Child Exploitation Online Protection police squad.
They had been alerted after Nelson posted the picture of two naked girls on the popular social media platform.
Nelson, who worked at a number of different schools, confessed he had done so by accident but pleaded guilty to owning a sickening horde of child porn.
The fact is you chose to search out such images and view them, you did it quite deliberately, you did it repeatedly
- Richard Wright QC
The shamed teacher escaped jail today fleeing court with his face covered by a maroon knapsack, emblazoned with the phrase Youth and Childrens Sing Choirs.
York Crown Court heard how officers attended Nelsons home on June 14 and arrested him after unearthing 16,297 vile images over several devices including pen drives, flash drives, a computer tower and a laptop.
The majority were rated Category C which included erotic pictures of naked children but he also had images of children being raped and sordidly abused.
The father-of-one, from Wistow, North Yorkshire, who split from his wife following his arrest, had previously pleaded guilty to three counts of possessing indecent images of children and one count of possessing a prohibited image of children.
Recorder Richard Wright QC, who described Nelsons stash as an enormous number of images, sentenced him to six months imprisonment, suspended for 12 months.
He told Nelson: You had become quite literally obsessed with viewing images of that type.
The fact is you chose to search out such images and view them, you did it quite deliberately, you did it repeatedly.
The judge added: The reality is all of these children were being abused and exploited by people like you who view these images for their own perverted, sexual gratification.
Joe Culley, prosecuting, said: He admitted searching for pre-teen pornographic images for excitement adding that Nelson felt ashamed and disgusted by his behaviour.
The prosecutor told the court aggravating features in the case were the high volume of images and Nelsons deliberate internet searches.
Lee-Anne Robins-Hicks, defending, said, at the suggestion of police, Nelson had written to the parents of people he had previously been teaching to explain these proceedings.
Nelson was also handed a community order with a 20-day rehabilitation requirement and made the subject of an indefinite Sexual Harm Prevention Order to prevent him working with children and placed on the sex offenders register.