MATTHEW NORMAN FROM THETFORD CAUGHT VIEWING ILLEGAL CHILD ABUSE IMAGES ON DARK WEB

In April 2019, a disturbing case emerged involving a man from Thetford named Matthew Norman, who was found to have engaged in viewing illegal child abuse images on the dark web. The incident came to light after police conducted a search of Norman's residence on Station Road, leading to the discovery of numerous indecent images stored on his computer.

During the proceedings at Norwich Magistrates' Court, it was revealed that Norman, aged 30, had a troubling pattern of repeatedly accessing a specific dark web site. Court documents indicated that he visited this site up to four times daily over the course of a year, demonstrating a persistent and deliberate engagement with illicit material. Despite this, Norman maintained to law enforcement officials that he did not possess a sexual interest in children. Instead, he claimed that his visits were driven by a sense of thrill and excitement derived from the danger associated with accessing such forbidden content.

Prosecutor Josephine Jones outlined the case details, stating that police had traced Norman's IP address to his home, which led to a search of his computer. The investigation uncovered approximately 50 indecent images, including 13 classified as 'category A,' indicating the most severe level of abuse material. Norman cooperated with authorities by providing passwords to his device, initially asserting that he would cease viewing such images once encountered online. However, when questioned about his repeated visits to the dark web site, Norman explained that he was drawn to the site because of the shock value and the illegal nature of the content, which he found exciting due to the risk involved.

He denied downloading or saving any images and insisted he had no sexual interest in children. Further examination revealed that Norman also accessed chat rooms on the dark web where conversations related to child abuse were taking place. The court was informed that Norman pleaded guilty to charges of making 13 indecent images of a child in 'category A,' along with 10 images in 'category B' and 27 images in 'category C.' All these offences were committed on or before January 5, 2017.

It was noted that Norman, who is married, had no prior convictions or cautions, which was considered during the proceedings. His legal representative, Orla Daly, requested that a pre-sentence report be prepared before sentencing. Norman is scheduled to return to Norwich Magistrates' Court on May 30 for sentencing. As part of his conditions, he is prohibited from having any unsupervised contact with children under the age of 16 unless explicit permission is granted by a parent or guardian, reflecting the seriousness of the charges and the potential risk posed to minors.