DANIEL POWELL JAILED IN GLOUCESTER FOR CHILD PORNOGRAPHY OFFENSES

In December 2009, Daniel Powell, of Elm Street, Swindon Village, was sentenced to two years in prison by Gloucester Crown Court for offenses related to child pornography. Powell pleaded guilty to making indecent photographs and videos of a 14-year-old girl between 2003 and 2006, and acknowledged possessing other indecent images of children on his computers.

The court was told that the girl, now 17, was 'greatly distressed' upon discovering that her images were accessible worldwide online. Prosecutor Brendon Moorhouse revealed that police arrested Powell at his home in September 2008 after seizing computers containing 145 images. Moorhouse explained, “He had started a relationship with a girl of 13 some years before and during it, he took various photographs of her. The relationship became sexual when she was about 14, and he also recorded videos of her. His mobile phone was also found to contain indecent images.”

Moorhouse added that Powell took additional indecent images of the girl when she was 17, with her consent. However, she did not agree to these images being shared online. Police found that 29 of the images had been distributed on the internet, which caused significant distress to the young woman, as her images remain accessible worldwide.

Defense attorney David Webster argued that the images found online were of low-level indecency, stating, “If he had distributed more intimate images, they would have been discovered during the police investigation. There is no evidence to suggest he will engage in this activity again, and the victim has been able to move on and put these matters behind her.”

Judge Martin Picton emphasized that even these low-level images clearly depicted an underage girl and represented a severe breach of trust. He stated, “You took photographs of a young woman and posted them on a website in her name. You shared these images and sent them to a site used by paedophiles, so she now knows her image has been circulated forever, in the hands of all kinds of undesirable individuals. It was a terrible act.”

As part of his sentence, Powell is required to sign the sex offenders’ register upon release. Currently residing in Southgate Street, Gloucester, his criminal conviction remains a serious reminder of his offenses.