August 2015 Judge tells man who downloaded child abuse images he ‘encouraged’ abuse A man who spent up to three years “staring at images of young boys” was told by a judge he had played a part in their abuse. Nottingham Crown Court heard that Paul Baker had downloaded over 5,000 images from Russian websites while living with his parents and before he had come out as a homosexual. Despite arguments from mitigation over the trouble Baker had in coming out to his family, Judge Gregory Dickinson QC said the 30-year-old could not blame his sexuality for the offences. “This has nothing to do with you being a homosexual and not being able to come out to your family and friends,” he told Baker, of Trivett Square in the Lace Market “That is no reason or excuse for looking at images of the sexual abuse of little boys. It is not a reason for a heterosexual to look at images of little girls.” Mark Knowles, prosecuting, said police visited the home of Baker’s parents at 7am on March 26, telling them that pornography had been downloaded at the address. “They were somewhat mystified as to the situation,” said Mr Knowles. Computer equipment was taken away, including laptops found under Baker’s bed. Before these were analysed, he told his parents what they contained and made arrangements to go to the police. A total of 5,674 images were found. Most showed boys aged around 16 and 17, some involved in sexual acts. But some involved children “aged seven,” added Mr Knowles. Judge Dickinson said: “There are an awful lot of cases like this. If a person like you looks at material like this, it encourages people who are directly abusing a child. “It is a massive problem throughout the world and most of us find it impossible to understand what drives anyone to do it. The court heard how some photographs showed boys being abused by men. Others could have been selfies created by boys who thought they were sending pictures to girls – when really they were in contact with men posing as females. Baker pleaded guilty to 12 counts of downloading photographs and videos of child pornography from the internet and six of possessing indecent images. He received a three year community order – which involves being on probation for the same period and having to attend a course to curb his sex offending – and he must do 200 hours unpaid community work. Richard Posner, mitigating, said Baker had never been in trouble before and told the judge: “He is very clear and wholly acknowledges that what he has done is wholly improper and wrong. “He wholly understands the suffering which is caused by those who produce the images. “There is simply a detachment in looking at these images over the internet. There was no association between looking and the actual production of the images. He does very much understand it can’t happen again.”