April 2009 Derry judge brands child porn images ‘truly abhorrent’ A District Judge has described as “truly abhorrent and disgusting” the actions of a 25 year-old computer technician caught with dozens of pornographic images of semi-naked children. Christopher John Temple, of Barnewall Place in Derry’s Waterside, yesterday admitted nine charges of making the 30 specimen images on dates unknown between November 2004 and October 2005. District Judge Barney McElholm also questioned Temple’s “remorse” for his actions. “Every society should deplore crimes of this nature and, indeed, there are many in society who believe only a custodial sentence meets the justice in these cases.” said Mr. McElholm. “I have concerns about this defendant in relation to the possibility of him re-offending. He was remorseful in court today but expressed no remorse during the course of his probation report. Perhaps he has finally come to his senses.” A defence barrister said Temple “does now realise that these are not victimless crimes, that they were real children who were abused in the creation of these images.” A prosecution barrister told the court that a police investigation into the offences started in September 2005 when a representative of the North West Centre for Learning and Development in Derry reported to police that indecent images had been found on Temple’s work computer. At the time, Temple was on placement at the Red Fox IT company at Ebrington Terrace in the city’s Waterside. The court heard that the images had been deleted but police were able to recover four of them. In October 2005, police, under warrant, searched Temple’s home where they seized his computer and recovered the other 26 images At Derry Magistrate’s Court yesterday, Temple was placed on the Sex Offenders’ Register for seven years and put on probation for three years. He was also banned from having a computer in a domestic setting and banned from computer-related employment without making a disclosure of his convictions to his line manager. He was further disqualified from work which gave him unsupervised access to children and he was ordered not to associate with children under the age of 18 unless approved by social services.