June 2017 Bentilee pervert, 57, caught with more than 16000 child abuse images A pervert that downloaded thousands of child abuse images over a 12-year period has avoided prison 57-year-old Gary Chidlow was arrested after police seized his computer tower and mobile phone during a search on his Bentilee home. Officers found more than 16,000 indecent photographs of children and eight extreme pornographic pictures. Now Chidlow has been handed a three-year community order as an alternative to a prison sentence as there is a ‘sufficient prospect of him being rehabilitated’. Prosecutor Fiona Cortese said police executed a warrant at the defendant’s home in Dawlish Drive on September 29. Miss Cortese said: “The address was searched and police seized a computer tower and a mobile phone. They found 2,477 category A images on the computer tower of which 2,052 were accessible; 2,301 category B images of which 1,842 were accessible; and 11,525 at category C, of which 8,773 were accessible. There were eight accessible extreme images found of which two were movies. “The defendant’s mobile was analysed and all images were inaccessible. There were 84 stills and 34 moving images at category A; 58 stills and 11 movies at category B; and 91 stills and three movies at category C.” Chidlow, of Dawlish Drive, Bentilee, pleaded guilty to three charges of making indecent photographs of children and possession of an extreme pornographic image. Judge David Fletcher sentenced Chidlow to a three-year community order with three years’ supervision and a requirement he attends the sex offenders’ treatment programme. He was placed on the sex offenders’ register for five years and made the subject of a Sexual Harm Prevention Order. Judge Fletcher said: “Many of the images involve adults raping very young children. That is something you have been looking at for a period of 12 years or so. “They are real children that you were looking at, they are not dolls. They are not capable of consenting to what was happening to them. “What is perfectly clear is that their lives have been severely blighted by the fact that they have been utilised for the taking of images you have been accessing.”