August 2014 West Reading man jailed for second time for child sex offences A 42-year-old man was jailed for 20 months for downloading more than 40,000 images of children – including babies – being abused. Nicholas Stebbing-Allen, of Zinzan Street, West Reading, pleaded guilty at a previous hearing to two counts of making indecent images of children. Jane Davies, prosecuting, said police went to the defendant’s home and the images, which had been deleted, were found on a laptop and a computer hard drive. They included still and video images. There were a total of 158 pictures in the worst ‘level 5’ category. Miss Davies said there were also messages which suggested “file-sharing” although there were no charges of distribution of indecent images of children. She said Stebbing-Allen was convicted in 2002 on a similar charge and imprisoned for six months. Then in 2007 he was given a community order for attempted voyeurism involving trying to take pictures of boys in a changing room. Kerry Waitt, defending, said Stebbing-Allen had recently completed the Lucy Faithfull Foundation course for sex offenders. He said the defendant had “felt revulsion and shame” after looking at the images and deleted them. He had been in full-time work but following the recent charges he felt he had to disclose what was happening to his employer. Mr Waitt said following discussion with his employer, Stebbing-Allen resigned. Judge John Reddihough told the defendant: “You are intelligent enough to realise the effect of the offences such as this. You downloaded and looked at indecent images of children.” He went on: “These were real children who were exploited and abused for these photos to be taken.” He said because of people looking at and downloading images, those who made a business out of taking them would carry on. “So the number of children around the world who are abused in this way simply increases,” he added. “We all know that such abuse has a lasting effect on their lives.” He said as soon as Stebbing-Allen came off the sex offenders’ programme for his last offence, he carried on committed the offences. As well as jailing him for 20 months for each of the offences to run concurrently, the judge made a sexual offences prevention order forbidding the use of computers except for business and placed him on the sex offenders’ register for 10 years.