March 2015 Former teacher & scout leader spared prison after hundreds of indecent images found at his home A FORMER Southampton teacher and Hamble parish councillor was today sentenced for making and possessing hundreds of indecent images of boys. Eliot Easterby, 44, was given a three year community order when he appeared for sentence at Southampton Crown Court following his conviction last month. Jurors had heard how police armed with a search warrant arrived at his home at 6.45am on January 22 last year, following a tip off from Canadian police as part of a major international operation. In a four and a half hour search, they found ten DVDs and examined his computer, a hard drive and three memory sticks on which they discovered almost 700 images. Almost 300 had been viewed on the computer but deleted. Another 374 had been downloaded and stored. The prosecution accepted the images were of the least serious category. DVDs included Water Wiggles and More Water Wiggles, showing boys cavorting in paddling pools. They also discovered a hoard of boys underwear beneath his bed, which had been left behind when he took scouts on trips as leader of Hamble Sea Scouts. It took jurors less an hour to convict Easterby, who taught maths at Sholing Technology College and has written teenage ghost stories, guilty on 13 counts of possessing and making indecent images and not guilty of one other charge. He had denied all the allegations. Passing sentence today, Judge Peter Henry said the jury had in his opinion quite rightly convicted him of the charges that involved boys aged between 8 and 15. “The question was whether they considered them indecent. I have to say it was a wholly unrealistic proposition. “You say you have no sexual attraction to boys. That is a matter of some concern because all the images of the boys linger on the area of genitalia. “These boys are victims, filmed for the sexual gratification of you and others. It is not a victimless crime.” The judge stressed there was no evidence of any sexual contact with children and said he had to sentence Easterby not only to punish him but seek to protect the public. “The best way of achieving that is to pass a community order.” Easterby, of Barton Drive, Hamble, was given a ten year sexual offences prevention order restricting his use of the Internet and having no contact with boys under 16 without their parents or guardians consent. He was also placed on the sex offenders register for seven years and ordered to attend a sex offender treatment course. In mitigation, Sarah Jones said Easterby felt he had been sucked into looking at one image and then another and had lost track of where he was. She urged the court to pass the community order which would best serve him and others around him rather than sending him to jail which would provide nothing for him. February 2015 Former teacher & scout leader found guilty after hundreds of indecent images found at his home A FORMER teacher and scout leader is facing jail after being found guilty of possessing hundreds of indecent images of young boys. Officers swooped on the former parish councillor’s address in Hamble last year, seizing hundreds of images. Easterby was found guilty just weeks after fellow former Sholing Technology College teacher Edmund Warbrick was given a suspended sentence for admitting owning images of children. Click this for profile on Edmund Warbrick It took a jury less than an hour to find 43-year-old former Hamble Parish councillor Easterby guilty of 13 offences of possessing and making indecent images of young boys, and not guilty of one other charge. He sobbed in the dock after the verdict was delivered, and a judge at Southampton Crown Court told him that “all options are open” when he is sentenced next month. Police discovered ten DVDs at his home and searched his computer, a hard drive and three memory sticks on which they found 669 indecent images. The DVDS were discovered on the top drawer of a bedroom and photos were also located in a holdall in the bedroom. Almost 300 pictures had been viewed on the computer but deleted. Another 375 images had also been downloaded and had been stored on the hard drive or on memory sticks. Easterby was bailed ahead of sentencing on March 13, and Judge Henry gave him an interim sexual offences prevention order banning him from using devices to access the internet where history can be deleted or where images can be stored. Under his bail conditions he must not have any unsupervised contact with children under 18, not contact any children under 18 online or attend any events organised by scout groups.  Sholing Technology College