Febuary 2010 ‘Child abuse images addict’ forced to live in shed A WIFE reported her porn “addict” husband to police after she realised he was watching images of children – and now she makes him live in the shed. Colin Matthews, 45, from Cornwall, was brought to justice when his wife Patricia, who knew of his addiction to adult pornography, realised his Internet perversions had extended to child pornography and alerted police. However, Truro Crown Court was told yesterday she was standing by him but that he now lived in a shed away from the house. Matthews admitted downloading indecent video clips of children from the Internet. The court was told yesterday how the vile video images of children aged about 13 and 14 ranged from one to five on the so-called Copine Scale. The legal scale categorises the severity of child pornography in which one is the lowest and five is the highest and most serious level of abuse. At an earlier court hearing, Matthews, who had attended Sexaholics Anonymous, pleaded guilty to seven charges of making indecent photographs of children in October 2005. Prosecuting, Jennifer Kumeta said Matthews’ wife Patricia informed police in 2007 and he was arrested. She said that Mrs Matthews had also discovered a box file belonging to her husband which contained some printed stories about under-age boys and girls having sex. Miss Kumeta said: “During police interview, the defendant told officers that if there had been pornography on the computer, it had since been deleted. He said he had been abused as a child and had cared for his alcoholic mother. “He said there had been a number of visitors to the house and suggested some had abused him.” Defending, Michael Melville-Shreave said his client had no previous convictions and suffered from a number of health problems including emphysema and asthma and had suffered strokes. He added: “He spends 23 hours a day in bed and has no quality of life. “He was addicted to pornography and rather sweetly even tried Sexaholics Anonymous. “His wife is standing by him. Although he lives in a shed away from the house, she still does the cooking and cleaning for him. “These offences are disgusting and he is humiliated.” Judge Christopher Elwen sentenced Matthews, of St Francis Road, St Columb Road, near Newquay, to a two-year community order and placed him on the sex offenders register for five years. He is also not allowed to have unsupervised contact with children under the age of 17 and must allow the police access to his home at any time. Judge Elwen said: “Level 5 is particularly revolting.”Your wife is standing by you to a very, very commendable extent. “She was aware of your addiction to pornography and kept an eye on things and having been disturbed reported the matter immediately to the police.”