Dale Goll 58

Description

Dale Goll, aged 51, of Pitchill Cottages, Pitchill, near Alcester, also had 36 extreme pornographic bestiality images showing adults involved in sex acts with horses and dogs, and prohibited ‘pseudo-photographs’ depicting children in indecent acts.

Goll pleaded guilty to three charges of making indecent images of children, one of possessing images of extreme pornography and one of possessing prohibited images of children.

He was jailed for 12 months and ordered to register as a sex offender for ten years.

A judge at Warwick Crown Court rejected a submission that the plant nursery boss, whose business it was said would struggle without him, could be given a suspended sentence.

Prosecutor Rebecca Wade said the police went to Goll’s home with a warrant after receiving intelligence that he had been accessing child pornography using file-sharing software.

When they spoke to him, he admitted he had been downloading such images, and they seized seven devices which were then examined by experts.

Three of them, two computer towers and a hard drive, were found to have had illegal images on them which had been downloaded on various dates between 2005 and 2015.

Altogether the experts found 27 category A images, the most serious category, showing children being subjected to sexual activity, including one of a baby no older than two.

There was also a movie of a girl aged between eight and twelve performing a sex act on an adult, although the download was incomplete.

There were also 21 category B images of children and 11 category C images.

On one of the computers peer-to-peer file-sharing software had been installed, which Goll had used to download the images, many had been deleted after being viewed.

When Goll was interviewed, he admitted downloading the pictures, and told officers he knew what he was doing was wrong, but that he was addicted to it, although he denied being physically attracted to children, added Miss Wade.

Marcus Harry, defending, conceded: "There’s not a huge amount I can say about the offences. But although there were more than 50 in total, only eight of those were accessible, and there is only one moving image.

"He’s not a man who spent a lot of time downloading these images."

Mr Harry said Goll had struggled with periods of anxiety and depression, and it was at those times he found it more difficult to resist downloading the images.

Goll, who had been married for over 20 years and had two sons, aged 20 and 17, employs seven people at his plant business.

Urging the judge to pass a suspended sentence, Mr Harry added: "It would be difficult to keep those employees on, were he to face custody today."

But jailing Goll, Judge Sylvia de Bertodano told him: "You knew at the time it was wrong. The reason it is so serious is that although it may not seem like it when you’re sitting in front of your computer, these are real children being abused.

"If there was not a market for them, these children would likely not be being abused in this way – and the market for them is people like you.

"You have run for years a nursery you set up yourself, and you are a good employer. But I have to deal with you for this other side of your character.

"I am afraid it must be an immediate sentence. The message must go out that if adult men download images of children being horrifically abused then, no matter what the mitigation, public policy must outweigh that, and people who do this must go to prison."