March 2009 Boss who downloaded child pornography blamed staff AN Ilminster father of four has been handed a suspended prison sentence for possessing indecent images of children. Paul Smith, aged 45, of Ladymeade Road, downloaded material from the Internet and tried to blame two female employees when confronted. He accused one of them of deliberately setting him up, which was later shown to be “a nonsense and a falsehood”, Taunton Crown Court was told. Smith, who ran Seaway Insurance Consultants at Ilminster, downloaded images before his staff arrived for work, said Ian Fenney, prosecuting. At an earlier hearing, when he admitted making indecent photographs of children between December 2005 and March 2007, the prosecution successfully applied to lift a ban on publishing his name after Mr Fenney claimed Smith was “trying to preserve his reputation”. Most of the images were of the least-serious category one, including 314 photos of very young girls. But there was also one “sado-masochistic” photograph of a teenage girl rated at the most-serious category five. Mr Fenney said one of the female staff confronted Smith after finding images on her works computer and his attitude towards her changed. He became hostile and accused her of trying to set him up. The other employee became so concerned she reported him to the police, who found Smith sitting at his computer when they paid an informal visit. An analysis later showed he had been accessing child pornography 30 minutes before they arrived. Before his arrest on 27 April 2007, he tried to persuade his IT consultant to wipe the disk and clean the computer but she declined to do so. When interviewed by police, he refused to accept that he was responsible for accessing the material and said he had been framed by one of his employees. He claimed she was disgruntled and angry and had threatened to damage him. He also said other people had access to the building and suggested people working for other firms had got into his office and used the computers, which was “a complete nonsense”, said Mr Fenney. Also downloaded on his computer were a series of short stories, which, he added, were “highly explicit about sexual activities involving very young boys and girls”. Rebecca Bradbury, defending, said Smith had lost his good character as a result of his conviction. He had been having counselling and accepted the need to work with a sex offenders’ programme and address issues in his life which had been described in a psychiatrist’s report. The case had also impacted on his family. There had been a dramatic financial effect and they had been investigated by social workers. They remained united in their support for Smith and he also had the support of the company, she added. Sentencing Smith to four months’ custody suspended for two years, Judge Graham Hume Jones said it was unforgivable and an aggravating feature that he had passed the blame on to his employees. “That indicates to me that you are a particularly manipulative type of person,” he said. The case crossed the custody threshold although most of the images were in the lower categories. Smith was ordered to attend a sex offenders’ programme and to sign the Sex Offenders’ Register for seven years. He was also given a sex offences prevention order and ordered to pay prosecution costs of £1,340. Smith will not serve the term in prison if he stays out of trouble.