November 2002 Child net porn fine slammed Charities campaigning against child sexual abuse have called for tougher penalties for convicted paedophiles after a respected Wimbledon pensioner was fined for making and downloading child porn. Laurance North, 73, appeared at Wimbledon Magistrates’ Court on Tuesday on a string of child pornography charges. Married Mr North, a retired professor of microbiology and a respected member of the Wimbledon community, pleaded guilty to making three indecent still photographs and two indecent moving images of children and adults, taken from the internet. The graphic images, seized by police when they raided his home in an affluent part of the borough in January, depicted horrific scenes of rape and abuse. Mr North was fined £500 for each image and ordered to pay £55 legal costs. His four computers, along with two disks, were seized and impounded. He was also ordered to sign the sex offenders register for five years. The fine imposed on Mr North has angered charities, who say it is too lenient to reflect the far-reaching consequences of child pornography. John Carr, internet adviser at children’s charity NCH, said penalties for making child pornography were as long as 10 years in some cases and a fine was a very light sentence. He said: “I can only imagine because of his age they took pity on him, but the truth is people like him sustain the market for child pornography and by sustaining the market what they are doing is meeting the demands of that market. .” Helen Webb, of childhood sexual abuse charity Breaking Free, said: “To be fined £2,500 and to be put on the register to me is an insult to children, who will be troubled by this for the rest of their lives. “Unfortunately if someone has got a little bit of money and they’re that way inclined they think the images are okay and the kids aren’t being hurt.” She said many adults who were abused as children still contemplated suicide and called for a review of the penalties for those in possession of child porn. Inspector Pete Dobson, of Wimbledon police, said detecting offenders in such cases was a difficult process and officers tended to concentrate on addresses where large volumes of porn were being downloaded. He said: “The police treat these matters with the utmost urgency as it involves protecting the vulnerable members of our community. “Anyone thinking about downloading child pornography should think twice, because they may be one of the ones we are monitoring.”