ANTHONY O'SHEA, FORMER COVENTRY SCHOOL CARETAKER, LOSING APPEAL OVER CHILD PORNOGRAPHY CONVICTION IN COVENTRY

In December 2010, a former Coventry school caretaker, Anthony O’Shea, aged 40, lost his appeal against convictions related to child pornography. O’Shea was originally sentenced to five months in jail in November 2005 after being found guilty on two counts of incitement to distribute an indecent photograph of a child and three counts of attempting to incite others to do the same.

His conviction stemmed from one of the UK's largest online paedophile investigations, known as Operation Ore. O’Shea, previously employed at Blue Coat Church of England School in Stoke and residing at Scots Lane, Coundon, had subscribed to an internet pornography site using a credit card. Notably, no indecent images or a computer were recovered during the investigation.

O’Shea challenged his conviction at the Court of Appeal last month. However, Lord Justice Stanley Burnton, Mr Justice King, and Mr Justice Nicol dismissed his appeal, affirming their confidence in the correctness of the original verdict. Lord Justice Burnton emphasized that O’Shea’s case was not part of a public inquiry into Operation Ore.

He explained, “O’Shea was one of a considerable number of persons charged with offences relating to child pornography,” adding that “they were accused of accessing and downloading child pornography through an internet website located in the USA called Landslide.”

During the trial and his appeal, O’Shea maintained that he had never accessed the Landslide site, asserting that any entries on his computer attributed to him must have been made by others. Nonetheless, the judges dismissed his challenge, with Lord Justice Burnton concluding, “We have no doubt whatsoever as to the safety of his conviction.”