February 2014 Coventry asylum seeker jailed after downloading thousands of child abuse images An asylum-seeker downloaded so many indecent images of children that the police stopped counting when they reached 20,000 Farid Safi was caught after posting some of the images on a Facebook account linked to an internet address which was traced back to his Coventry home. And at the crown court in Leamington he pleaded guilty to ten charges of making indecent images of children, some as young as three, of all five levels of seriousness. Safi, 48, of Aylesford Street, Hillfields, Coventry, was jailed for 15 months and ordered to register as a sex offender for ten years. He came to the UK 11 years ago from Algeria – but his plea for ayslum has yet to be resolved, the court was told. Prosecutor Lal Amarasinghe said an investigation began after the police received information from the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children. It concerned images which had been uploaded onto a Facebook account in the name of Dave Collins in October 2012. Enquiries into the account holder led the police to the address in Aylesford Street, where other people were also living. In Safi’s room, which had been locked, they seized his computer tower and eight DVDs. On the computer and one of the discs were stored thousands of indecent still images and movies of children, some of them as young as three or four. The charges related to a staggering 20,000 stills and 75 movies classed as level one, showing children in indecent poses but with no sexual activity. There were 268 stills and 160 movies at level two; 62 stills and one movie at level three, showing adults engaging in sexual activity with children, and 90 stills and 13 movies at level four and there were four stills and one movie at the most serious category of level five. When Safi was interviewed through an interpreter he admitted making the images by downloading them, claiming he did not know it was illegal to look at such images, although he accepted he knew the abuse depicted was illegal. Judge Alan Parker observed: “The 20,000 represented at least that number, because once 20,000 had been found the officers stopped looking for more.’’ Talbir Singh, defending, Safi had come to the UK in 2002 seeking asylum, which has still not been decided, as a result of which he was not entitled to work and began to lead an ostracised life.