April 2019 Convicted paedophile sentenced to 23 months in prison A repeat offending paedophile from Devon who escaped prison in 2016 after he was caught with 2 MILLION images of child abuse has been sent to prison for nearly two years after being again with image of child sexual abuse Edward Brooks, 52, of Hayfield Road, Minehead was sentenced at Taunton Crown Court on April 1. Brooks was given a total of 23 months in prison after he pleaded guilty to two counts of making indecent images of a child.He was found not guilty on one charge of possessing an indecent photograph of a child. Brooks was given a four-month consecutive sentence and four months concurrent for the charges. But due to previously being given a suspended sentence, he received a total of 23 months in prison. He was also ordered to pay £140 victim surcharge, the images were forfeited and destroyed and his computer was seized. He will be on the sex offenders register for 10 years. Two other charges, one for making indecent photography of a child, and one for possessing extreme pornographic image portraying an act of intercourse or oral sex with an animal, are to lay on his file. The court was told that in 2016, the home of Edward Brooks was searched and police found hundreds of thousands of films featuring young girls on two computers and two hard drives, which were found hidden in a cavity wall. There had been so many films that police had been unable to categorise all of them. Of the few thousand that had been categorised by police, 682 were of the most serious category which showed children being raped and tortured. They had been downloaded over a 10 year period January 2017 Paedophile with 2 MILLION child abuse videos let off by judge who blasts sentencing guidelines A judge has condemned the guidelines for sentencing people found with images of child abuse after he was forced to hand a suspended sentence to a man with over two million videos of child abuse. When the home of Edward Brooks was searched in February last year, they found millions of films featuring young girls on two computers and two hard drives, which were found hidden in a cavity wall. Prosecuting, Nikki Coombe said there had been so many films that police had been unable to categorise all of them. Of those that had been categorised, 682 were of the most serious category which showed children being raped and tortured. They had been downloaded over a 10 year period from February 2006. “A number of relevant internet searches have been carried out, which showed he had an interest in young girls aged between 12 and 14 years old,” she said. But shortly after being arrested by police and while on police bail, 50-year-old Brooks, of Hayfield road, Alcombe, Minehead, went online and downloaded 2,231 category C images and videos, containing girls aged between eight and sixteen years old. When interviewed by police, Brooks fully admitted two charges of possessing indecent images of children. A report by the probation service suggested Brooks had not seen the girls in the movies as being ‘people’ or ‘human’. “He accepts that immediate custody is a real possibility,” she said. “His time in remand has been a real shock” She said the fact he had gone on to download more images after being arrested was proof of the compulsive nature of his behaviour. “He has had suicidal thoughts while he was on remand,” she said. “The only thing keeping him going is his daughter. He wants to see her grow up.” “So, you have a daughter? How old is she?” Judge David Ticehurst wanted to know. “How would you feel about her appearing in the videos like the ones you’ve been watching? “It’s people like you that lead to young girls like your daughter being abused. These are real children, with real feeling and real emotions and now, no doubt, with real psychological trauma that will stay with them for the rest of their lives. Trauma that people like you are responsible for. “Your offending is compounded by the fact that after you were arrested; you continued to view these images.” But due to National Sentencing Guidelines, the judge would only have been able to sentence him to two years in prison. Taking into account credit for his guilty plea and time served on remand, Brooks would only have spent six months behind bars. “I wish I could make it longer, but the fact is that you’d serve only half of that sentence, less the time you’ve already served and the credit for your guilty plea. You’d spend a few months behind bars and come out and offend again, no doubt,” said the Judge. “That is not in the public interest. “What I want to do is stop you. I will impose a two year custodial sentence, suspended for two years and I order you to take part in the Thames Valley Sex Offender Programme. You will also undertake a 25 day rehabilitation requirement and be the subject of a Sexual Harm Prevention Order.”