Child porn sentence is ‘a poor deterrent’
A SUSPENDED prison sentence handed down to a Seaford man who downloaded indecent images of children has been criticised by a children’s charity.
The NSPCC said the sentence given to Malcolm Kail, of Bodiam Close, sent out a ‘poor message’ to victims of child sexual abuse and that he should have gone to jail.
The 59-year-old appeared at Hove Crown Court on Wednesday last week where he pleaded guilty to 17 charges.
These included 12 counts of downloading indecent photographs and two counts of possessing a prohibited image of a child.
Two of the charges relate to possessing extreme pornographic images and one count relates to possessing an image, also of an extreme pornographic nature, which portrays a sexual act with an animal.
In total Kail had more than 11,000 illegal images and of those more than 2,400 were extreme pornographic images.
He was sentenced to 12 months jail suspended for 24 months and 300 hours of unpaid work.
He was also ordered to pay £1,500 costs, has been placed on the sex offenders’ register for 10 years and received an indefinite disqualification from working with children. He will also be subject to a Sex Offenders’ Prevention Order until further notice.
But Jon Brown, Head of Sexual Abuse at the NSPCC, said the sentence was a ‘poor deterrent to abusers’ adding, “This is a distressing case where a man was found possessing and downloading over 11,000 illegal images of children.
“A suspended prison sentence gives a poor message to victims of child sexual abuse and is a poor deterrent to abusers, and a term of imprisonment with treatment would have been much more appropriate.
“The offender shows a strong sexual interest in children by the sheer number of images which were found, and his behaviour needs to be assessed and treated, but this is unlikely to happen with this sort of sentencing.
“If you are an adult and you have concerns about the safety of a child, you can call the NSPCC’s helpline on 0808 800 5000.”
Police became aware of Kail through an intelligence-led investigation by Sussex Police’s Paedophile Online Investigation Team which identified him as a suspect.
He was arrested on February 28 last year and charged with the offences on April 17, 2012.
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