August 2010 Man jailed after wife found child abuse images/movies A MAN has been jailed for child abuse images offences after his wife discovered the perverted images on a disc in his desk and informed the police. Alaric Fitch, of Melbourn Road, Royston, admitted 15 charges of making indecent photographs or pseudo-photographs of a child and one offence of possessing 349 indecent images of children. The 44-year-old was sentenced to eight months’ imprisonment and will be on licence for three years upon his release. Chelmsford Crown Court heard on Friday how Fitch’s wife alerted police after she found two CDs in his desk while she looked for mortgage documents in the lead up to the couple’s divorce proceedings. The CDs were in an envelope labelled with words describing a sex act involving girls. Samantha Leigh, prosecuting, said officers went to the couple’s former home in Saffron Walden and seized computer equipment. She said Fitch was in possession of more than 300 indecent images of children. The images included two at level five, the most serious on the police’s five-point scale of obscenity, and 183 at level four. Christine Laing, mitigating, said Fitch became clinically depressed after his marriage started to break down in 2001. She said he began to look at child pornography images and put them on CD-roms. “He cannot explain it and doesn’t understand why he did it,” said Miss Laing. “He knows his depression played a part in it and drink played a part in it.” Judge Rodger Hayward Smith QC told Fitch one of the images found in his possession was “particularly abhorrent.” He said: “I’m well aware this case is a tragedy for you and your family. But every time a pornographic photo of a child is taken, that child is seriously abused, sexually, physically and emotionally. “People such as yourself who download these images enable the market in such abuse to flourish. That is why these offences are so serious. “In my judgement they are so serious only a sentence of immediate imprisonment is appropriate.”