April 2012 ‘Abused’ fraudster Darren Paul Crews avoids going to jail A MAN who defrauded a rail company out of hundreds of pounds and had almost a thousand indecent images of children on his computer has avoided jail. Darren Paul Crews, 30, worked at the East Coast Mainline travel centre in York railway station when he used customers’ credit card details to purchase tickets and fraudulently refunded them to his own account and for cash. When the fraud was detected in early 2011, police searched his home address and found a small amount of cannabis, and a laptop which contained 953 indecent images of children, 366 were of the most serious ratings. York Crown Court heard that Crews had downloaded 137 videos and 816 photographs using a peer-to-peer website that would have allowed others to see the files stored on his computer, although there was no evidence to suggest he had distributed the images further. Prosecuting, Alan Mitcheson told the court Crews had made no comment throughout police interviews, but had pleaded guilty to eight counts of fraud and 20 counts of possession of indecent images at a case management hearing in January. Nick Barker, for Crews, told the court a psychological report had been carried out on his client, which revealed he had suffered abuse as a child. Mr Barker said that when the matter came to light, during the evaluation, Crews was “devastated”, and it was the first time in his life he had articulated the abuse he suffered. Mr Barker said: “You have a 30-year-old man whose life has been destroyed by the abuse he suffered as a child. “His attachment and ability to hold relationship and have a degree of self-esteem have been corroded by what others did to him. It’s perhaps surprising that he has managed to get to the age he has without being more disfunctional.” Crews, now of Friary Street, Newark, was sentenced to 50 weeks in prison on each indictiment, to run concurrently, and to be suspended for two years. He was also placed on a two-year community order, ordered to attend a sexual offender programme, and will be placed on the sexual offenders’ register. Judge Ibbotson said Crews had been suffering from the effect of a severely abusive childhood, and said he felt it important to suspend the sentence to ensure treatment could be carried out.