June 2018 North Yorkshire man ‘addicted to pornography all his life’ A pervert handed himself in after a fake Russian policeman demanded $5,000 in a bizarre blackmail plot. ‘Vladimir’ emailed James Ward demanding the money in bitcoins after he downloaded images of child abuse and other sick sex photographs from a website. Ward replied “hard luck” then walked into his local police station and became “his own informant”, prosecutor Paul Newcombe told Teeside Crown Court. The 64-year-old, from Stapleton, near Darlington, told detectives he had taken an interest in indecent images of children “later in life” and had been searching for it for two to three years. He was given bail, but quickly replaced his confiscated computers and started downloading filth from the internet again almost immediately. After being arrested the second time in December, he said he needed help, admitted he was an addict, but claimed he did not know watching people having sex with animals was illegal. Ward admitted possessing a total of 403 extreme pornographic images, two indecent images of children, and 18 prohibited images, which are cartoons of youngsters. Judge Simon Bourne-Arton, QC, passed a 14-month prison sentence, suspended for two years, and ordered to take part in a sex offender treatment programme as part of a rehabilitation activity requirement. The judge also imposed an indefinite Sexual Harm Prevention Order which will limit Ward’s internet and computer use