Mansfield dad spared jail for stash of 15,000 child and animal porn images

A Mansfield pervert caught with more than 15,000 images of child pornography as well as hundreds of people having sex with animals has been spared jail.

James Parsons, aged 39, was handed a suspended sentence when he appeared at Nottingham Crown Court after admitting three counts of making indecent photographs and one count of possession of extreme pornographic images.

The court heard Parsons, of Winthorpe Street, admitted to police he had downloaded a huge porn “download dump” from the peer-to-peer sharing website 4Chan.

He had gone onto forums to ask where to find images and had used search terms including PTHC, meaning “pre-teen hardcore”.

Police found 636 of the most extreme category A images, as well as 708 Category B images and 13,888 Category C images.

There were also 210 images showing people having sex with animals.

Mark Knowles, prosecuting, said: “He was visited by officers on August 12, 2015, who showed him a search warrant. He admitted using the site.”

Parsons claimed he had left the huge file downloading and that when he came back and viewed the multiple folders with varying explicit content he was shocked by some of the images and instantly deleted the most extreme.

He is said to have later deleted the whole file dump.

Felicity Campbell, mitigating, said Parsons had no history of contact offences with children.

She said: “There is no suggestion there has been any attempt to contact anyone under the age of 16 on the internet.

“4Chan contains YouTube videos, comedy, sports clips. He believed, because he came through the forum, it was legal.

“In the download dump he found images of children much younger. He perhaps foolishly believed the images of teenagers were okay.”

Parsons claimed he “doesn’t know why he did it”,’ as he has children and would never do anything to hurt them.

Mr Recorder Jason MacAdam presiding, said: “The descriptions of the activities that is portrayed, leaving aside the age of the people, is not of the sort that we sometimes see, where it moves beyond sexual activity.

"Some of these searches include ‘pre-teen hardcore’. A number of them are ‘teen fun’."

“He was looking for that ‘teen look’ on the forum and someone said ‘search for this’,” said Parsons’ defence barrister.

Parsons claimed he ‘doesn’t know why he did it,’ as he has children and would never do anything to hurt them.

The defendants family hoped he would not face a custodial sentence and asked that a non-contact order with his children wouldn’t prevent them spending Christmas together.

“They all want him home,” added Ms Campbell. “He’s ashamed and, himself, concerned at just how many images there were. There is no computer in the house and he doesn’t want to own a computer again.

After the initial charges with three counts of making indecent photographs and one count of possessing extreme pornographic images, the judge gave a sentence of 16 months, suspended for two years on the basis of his admission of guilt, as well as a sexual harm prevention order and addition to the sex offender's register.

The judge added: “The reason I am suspending this sentence is because you have pleaded guilty and it reinforces that you won’t do this again, or present any risk to children. That makes you one against the many many men who appear before this court. The overwhelming majority of men in my experience deny the offence despite the evidence against them.