March 2016: Released last year and now living back in Wednesbury January 2007 Pervert jailed for child abuse images A paedophile who made a young girl undress in front of a webcam and then threatened to visit her at her home has been jailed for an indefinite period. Wednesbury man Mark Keith Banner, aged 41, was also caught with more than 700 indecent images of children of which many showed young girls being raped. He pleaded guilty to all 31 charges against him of making and distributing abusive pictures. Judge Michael Challinor decided Banner was a risk to the public and gave him an indeterminate sentence for the protection of the public. For the specific offence against the nine-year-old girl, which he admitted, of inciting a child to engage in sexual activity, he was given five years. Banner clutched his chest and stared at the floor throughout the hearing at Wolverhampton Crown Court yesterday. Judge Challinor said: “The indeterminate sentence may be for many years and in some cases it is indistinguishable from a life sentence. “The worrying aspect of this case is the escalation since you started in 2004. In the end you had gathered a significant amount of the most degrading images and then, in the case of this young girl, you terrified her. “Plainly, it has changed her personality. Her mother says she is frightened of men and cannot sleep at night.” The court heard how Banner, who lived with his parents in Johnson Road, worked most of his life in foundries. He was unable to form relationships with women and found it easier to talk to children. On-line, he said he was 15 years’ old and used the code name ‘Stargazer’. After persuading his victim to strip, he told her he would send video footage to her friends and come to her house to give the film to her family if she did not keep in touch with him. Defending, Mr Jas Mann said: “He was open about what he had done when arrested and still maintains he did not know the girl was nine years’ old. He has an interest in schoolgirls but not in pre-pubescent children. Members of his family are ashamed of him.”