August 2008 Paedophile took pics of girl, 6, as she slept A PAEDOPHILE who took indecent pictures of a child while she slept before saving them on his computer was locked up for two-and-a-half years. Paul Stevens, 43, of Somercotes, Laindon, admitted going into a six-year-old girl’s bedroom and pulling back the covers to take the photos. Yesterday, at Basildon Crown Court, Judge Rupert Overbury said he did not accept Steven’s claim he committed the offence because an unknown man had been blackmailing him. He claimed the man threatened to report him for possessing child porn if he didn’t carry out the illegal act and send him the photo. Judge Overbury said: “I find this explanation manifestly false and implausible. “I am not alone in these views. “An experienced probation officer said this does not seem like a plausible explanation to the commission of these offences and I would suggest that Mr Stevens is in complete denial. “I propose to sentence you on the basis that you, for your own sexual gratification, touched a young six-year-old girl and you, for your own sexual gratification, took a picture of her so you could store it on your computer for your own future pleasure.” Judge Overbury also imposed a sexual offences prevention order which banned Stevens from carrying out any unsupervised work with anyone under 16, being in the presence of anyone under 16 without supervision or being in the company of any convicted sex offender. He was also prohibited from communicating with anyone under 16, owning or using a computer or mobile phone with internet access, except in a library, or refusing an officer policing the order entry to his home at any time. Stevens, who will now have to sign on the sex offenders register for life, pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to sexual assault of a child under 13 and taking indecent photos of a child. The court ordered the forfeiture and destruction of two computer towers, a camera and mobile phone seized from his home.