ADAM BATES FROM WOBURN SANDS ESCAPES JAIL AFTER COLLECTING 90,000 CHILD ABUSE IMAGES

In a case that has shocked the community of Woburn Sands, Adam Bates, a 30-year-old man, was found to have spent a decade accumulating an extensive and disturbing collection of child abuse images. The images, which included photographs and videos of babies as young as 10 months being subjected to sexual assault, were stored on two hard drives and a computer. The sheer volume of material was staggering, with Bates having amassed approximately 90,000 indecent images and videos over the course of ten years.

These heinous images were not only stored privately but also shared with other offenders through uploading them onto the file-sharing platform Gigatribe. Among the collection, Bates had classified around 6,000 images and videos as levels two to five, with level five representing the most severe and offensive material. The images depicted acts of sexual abuse involving very young children, which experts and authorities described as 'appalling.'

Despite the gravity of his actions, Bates, who resides on Vicarage Street in Woburn Sands, was not sentenced to prison. Instead, he was given a community order and ordered to participate in a three-year sexual offenders’ rehabilitation program. The decision was made by Judge Ian Pringle at Aylesbury Crown Court, who acknowledged that Bates’s diagnosis of Asperger’s syndrome played a significant role in his offending behavior.

Judge Pringle emphasized the impact of Bates’s condition, stating, “Anyone who has had the misfortune to have looked at those images in order to perform their public duties will be able to confirm my view that they are quite appalling.” He further explained that Bates’s tendency to hoard could have contributed to the accumulation of such a vast collection, adding, “Your condition I consider to be highly relevant to your offending.”

Prosecutor Nigel Ogborne QC revealed that in real life, Bates preferred to seek out teenagers and young women, but he admitted to a sexual attraction to children. Ogborne stated, “He said he must be sexually attracted to children but not when he saw them in the flesh.” The court heard that Bates had viewed and uploaded images on GigaTribe, doing nothing to prevent others from accessing his files.

The judge issued a supervision order, warning Bates that failure to comply could result in a jail sentence upon any future breach. Bates pleaded guilty to four counts of making indecent images of children and one count of possession, sharing, or distribution of indecent material. His defense lawyer, Andrew Jordan, argued that Bates had been ‘passive rather than active’ in sharing the material and urged the court to consider the benefits of the rehabilitation program, advocating for a community order rather than imprisonment.