Roy Dean 66

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A Huntington man who downloaded indecent images of children for five years told police he had "titillating and entertaining" pictures on his computer, York Crown Court heard.

But he denied being sexually interested in youngsters.

He tried to blame other people by claiming he was not the only one using his computer.

Patrick Palmer, prosecuting, said after police found more than 100 illegal images on his computer, Roy Dean admitted he was the only one who had access to the desktop.

Dean, 63, of Broome Close, Huntington, pleaded guilty to three charges of having indecent images of children.

“Until people like you stop looking at such images the market in them continues to thrive,” Judge Simon Hickey told him.

He gave him an eight-month prison sentence suspended for two years on condition Dean does 40 days' rehabilitation activities. He will also be on the sex offenders register and subject to a sexual harm prevention order restricting his use of the internet for 10 years.

Graham Parkin, for Dean, said he had been working on addressing his sexual behaviour since his arrest.

Mr Palmer said police raided Dean's home on May 7, after being told that sexual images of children had been downloaded at his address on March 14.

He told them he had only been looking at adult pornography and that he had "titillating and entertaining" images on his computer.

"An aggravating feature which I don't like in this case if you suggested others had access to your material or your desktop, something you now resile from," said Judge Hickey.

Mr Palmer said police confiscated Dean's desktop computer and several USB sticks and found illegal images on four of the sticks and on the desktop.

They found 36 images of the worst kind of sexual abuse, 19 of the next category and 87 of the lowest category, all downloaded between 2015 and 2020.

They also found evidence he had been actively searching for sexual images of children.

Interviewed again, Dean admitted that he and he alone was responsible for the images.