January 2011 Pervert caught with nearly 50,000 indecent images of children A HEALTH service administrator has said he became “obsessed” with child abuse images while on leave with a stress-related illness. Anthony Hargreaves was found to have amassed a collection of 49,978 indecent images of children by the time police removed the computer from his home in Constable Close, Stanley, County Durham, in October 2009. He was jailed for 16 months after Durham Crown Court was told he not only stored images for his own pleasure, but also made some available to others on the internet. Lynsey Colling, prosecuting, told the court that when he was arrested, Hargreaves told the officers: “I don’t know why I did it.” Examination of the material revealed they were across all five levels of severity for such images, including 614 in the most serious category. Hargreaves told officers they featured “toddlers to teens”, but mainly males He described it becoming an obsession and accepted allowing others to access his files and so filed them as ‘legal’ or ‘illegal’ and only allowed trusted users to access the ‘illegals’, which he said were images of children.” Hargreaves, 49, of previous good character, admitted 16 counts of making, and one each of possessing and distributing, indecent images of children. The court heard he has been in custody for 101 days awaiting sentence Jailing him, Judge Christopher Prince told Hargreaves: “You must understand each and every time these images are sought out or distributed and looked at, it’s a form of sexual abuse of that child.” Judge Prince ordered destruction of the computer equipment and prohibited Hargreaves from ever working with children. He must also sign the Sex Offenders’ Register for ten years.