December 2009 Man jailed for 36,000 child abuse images A CLEETHORPES man who downloaded indecent images of children has been jailed for six months. James Cass, 56, of Oliver Street, Cleethorpes admitted he downloaded about 36,000 indecent images of children. Prosecuting at Grimsby Crown Court, Jeremy Evans said 326 were category five – the most serious type of image. He said the police had tracked Cass from a server with indecent images in Austria. Officers went to his house in March 2008, and examined the contents of two computers in his home and some disks. They found 22,591 images had been deleted, but 13,563 were accessible. Mitigating, James Sampson asked that Cass’s ill health, frankness with the police and early guilty plea be taken into account. Sentencing, Judge David Tremburg said over three-and-a half-years, Cass had developed an “obsession,” and the number of images he had downloaded was “substantial.” “You could not have failed to realise that by indulging your addiction, it provided tacit encouragement for those who would abuse children and post such disgusting images on the Internet,” he said. “These offences are so severe, only an immediate custodial sentence could be given.” He said imprisonment for six months would be made worse for Cass because he had chronic pulmonary disease and needed a walking stick. Cass has also been placed under a sex offender provision order, restraining his use of computers and interaction with children. Following the case, Det Cons Steve Bury from the Internet sex offenders investigation section said: “We will investigate any suggestion anyone is committing this sort of crime. “We work with the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP) closely. In a nutshell, it doesn’t matter where people go for these images, we will get them eventually. My message to those thinking of committing such crimes is stop and get help.”