August 2017 Man who had 4,000 indecent images of children avoids jail sentence A Cheltenham man caught with almost four thousand indecent images of children on his computer avoided a jail sentence after appearing at court. Paul Lander, 50, of Rosebay Gardens, Cheltenham, admitted four offences of possession of indecent images of children and was sentenced to a two year community order at Gloucester Crown Court on Friday. Judge Jamie Tabor QC had been told that Lander has recently been diagnosed as being autistic. The Judge told Lander, who was in the dock on his 50th birthday, that his autism and the ‘lonely life’ he had led may have played a part in his downloading of the illegal images. But, said the judge, the vast majority of the images were the least serious category C and did not show children being harmed or abused. “I don’t think a prison sentence is required at this stage,” he said. As part of the community order, he said, Lander will have to undertake a 30 day rehabilitation activity requirement. He will also have to pay £250 costs, a £50 fine, and sign the sex offender register for the next five years. Prosecutor Nick Fridd had told the court that on February 29 last year police received information that Lander may be a person with obscene images on his computer. They raided his home on August 25 and even before his computer was examined he told them correctly what they would find. There were sixteen of the worst Category A images, 33 Category B and 3,781 Category C on the computer.