March 2012 Businessman pervert had child porn images A BUSINESSMAN targeted in police Operation Oliver was found to have more than 2,500 indecent images of children on his computer, a court was told. Most were at level one, the least serious, said prosecutor Charles Hardy, but there were 168 images at level four and nine at level five. The police also found some indecent movies. Martyn Wilkins, of Sand-fields, Upper Moor, Pershore, pleaded guilty at Worcester Crown Court to eight charges of possessing indecent images. The 63-year-old was given a three-year community order with supervision by the probation service and a requirement to attend a community sex education group programme Judge Toby Hooper QC also made a sexual offences prevention order forbidding access to the internet. Wilkins has to register as a sex offender for five years. Mr Hardy said the police operation began in March, 2010, when there was a burst of activity on a website which contained indecent images of children. Although it was rapidly closed, users were tracked down and Wilkins was interviewed at his home in April last year. He admitted that he had looked at the pictures out of curiosity and had felt ashamed. He denied having images at a serious level, but these were later found by police experts. Mark Lister, in mitigation, said that Wilkins had cooperated with police throughout the inquiry, which had begun 11 months ago. But he could give no proper explanation why he had committed the offences. He was a man struggling with his business and had substantial financial responsibilities to his wife and other members of the family employed in the business. He was rated as being of low risk of re-offending. The judge said the offences crossed the custody threshhold, but the real criminality of the case was the damage which had been caused to real children. Their degrading in the images was unspeakable and viewing them on the internet added to the real harm. Imposing the community order with supervision would enable the public to understand that it was a real punishment with a prospect of preventing re-offending.