October 2009 Man avoids jail for indecent images An internet chatroom moderator who abused his position to make and collect more than 1,800 indecent images of children has avoided jail. Ian Wootton, of Daw End Lane, Walsall, gathered images. The vile pictures – the majority of which featured boys aged between 12 and 15 – originated after he offered to help monitor AOL websites Unemployed Wotton, 43, spent hours trawling gay and lesbian chatrooms while pretending to be a boy, 13, supposedly as a way of helping police them. He used the role to search for sick images – some of which were so serious they were rated level four out of five by police. Wootton admitted a sample charge of making 20 indecent images and possessing one when appearing at Wolverhampton Crown Court. He was placed on a three-year supervision order, told to complete a sexual offenders programme and ordered to pay £250 costs. He was put on the sex offenders register for five years and disqualified from work with children. Mr Howard Searle, prosecuting, said he gathered the 1,818 still and moving pictures over 11 years before his arrest in October 2007. Police, acting on intelligence, found images on two computer stacks, a laptop and floppy disks at his home. Oliver Woodhouse, for Wootton, said he regretted the crimes. Judge John Warner said he insisted for a long time that the images were part of his monitoring role when they were clearly not. He said: “You will not be sent to jail today. It is help you need.”