Locations
Alyn Road, Buckley, Flintshire, CH7
Description
A sex offender who made indecent pictures of children and installed illegal software was today told by a judge "boredom and loneliness" was no excuse for his "depraved" behaviour.
Christopher Daniels, 51, of Alyn Road, Buckley, admitted making the images of children - including a baby girl. The pictures were in the most serious category A as well as categories B and C.
Mold Crown Court heard Daniels had been given a sexual harm prevention order (SHPO) for ten years in January 2017. Terms prohibited him from file sharing or using anonymity software on any device capable of accessing the internet.
However, on November 3, 2022 police searched his home and he was arrested on suspicion of making indecent images of children. Officers examined devices and found 147 indecent images in category A, 74 indecent images and one moving film both in category B, and 113 category C indecent images.
Images of boys and girls aged about four to 12 were on a Samsung phone with a protected PIN. His laptop had FrostWire peer-to-peer software - in breach of his SHPO.
Prosecutor Dafydd Roberts said one image showed someone committing an indecent act on a baby girl. A man committed an intimate act on another girl aged four to six in another image, the court heard.
Myles Wilson, defending, said a psychologist found Daniels has "unresolved, personal trauma" from childhood and adulthood. He is a "particularly anxious individual".
He doesn't work and feels targeted by locals. He has little support from family or friends and feels isolated, he added. But Mr Wilson suggested Daniels could be rehabilitated.
However, the judge His Honour Rhys Rowlands told the defendant: "I'm afraid it's abundantly clear to me you have no interest in complying with the terms of the sexual harm prevention order.
"The purpose and terms (of a SHPO) are important tools to ensure there is no repetition of the unnatural and worrying behaviour on your part." The judge said that there had been some sophistication in storing images during his "depraved" behaviour.
He added: "Obsessive behaviour born out of boredom and loneliness is understandable (but) I fail to see how this explains let alone excuses your deliberate and repeated accessing images of young children seemingly whilst affected by drink."
Nor does it excuse a deliberate breach of a court order - an order which would have been explained to him repeatedly, he said. For making indecent images in category A Daniels was jailed for 12 months with no separate penalties for the category B and C offences.
He was also given six months in jail, to run consecutively, for breaching the SHPO, making a total of 18 months imprisonment.