June 2004 ‘Hobby’ claim fails to save child abuse images man A BOURNEMOUTH man has compared amassing thousands of perverted images of children to stamp collecting. John Angell, of Churchill Road, was convicted in May at Bournemouth magistrates for having 2,817 indecent images of children under 16 on his personal computer, and was appearing at the town’s crown court this week for sentence. Antonia Jamieson, prosecuting, told the court that the 45-year-old’s home computer and software accessories had been seized by police who then made the discovery of its gruesome contents. She said that 2,144 of the images were category one, 180 category two, 373 category three, 110 category four and ten were category five – the most serious category. “Angell faces 16 charges of making indecent photos of children,” she said. “Charges one to ten relate to the category five images, 11 to 16 to the category four with 2,801 taken into consideration. “When he did admit to police that he’d made the images he said it was a very dark time in his life. But he also said it was akin to stamp collecting.” The offences took place between 2001 and 2003. Judge John Beashel said: “You are a man of previous good character but ten of the photos are categorised level five and 110 level four and are revolting in the extreme. “By downloading this filthy material you are corrupting young children. “You likened this to stamp collecting but I greet this with scepticism and don’t accept it at all.” He sentenced Angell to 18 months in prison on each count one to ten, and 18 months for the remaining counts – all to run concurrently. Angell was also ordered to register on the sex offenders register and was disqualified from ever working with children.