March 2006 Man kept child porn on his PC A 58-YEAR-OLD Swindon man downloaded child pornography from the internet. Peter Cox was caught after he had used his credit card to subscribe to the American-based website Landslide. But after hearing that almost all of the thousands of images carefully stored on his laptop were of the least serious kind, a judge decided not to jail him. Judge John McNaught said that if he passed a prison term Cox would be out in a couple of months without any treatment. Instead he put him on a three-year probation order and told him he must go on the Thames Valley sex offenders’ programme. Rob Welling, prosecuting, told Swindon Crown Court that officers raided Cox’s home on March 3, 2003, after getting his details from the American authorities. During the raid the police seized his laptop computer, as well as a number of compact disks. After his arrest Cox admitted to the police that he had paid to visit the site and he told officers that they would find hundreds of images on his machine. He admitted he had downloaded child pornography but told detectives that he had not gained any sexual gratification from it. Mr Welling said the computer was analysed and found to have 2,583 images. Mr Welling said that the pictures were carefully catalogued on the machine’s hard drive and on the discs. Cox, of Fairveiw, pleaded guilty to 14 counts of making indecent images of a child and one of possession. Jonathan Simpson, defending, said, that apart from the one set of 18 level five pictures, the majority of the rest were not of the most serious kind. “Through no fault of his own this case has been hanging over his head for three years,” he said. “What he has shown in that time is a marked improvement in his condition, and it was a delving and curiosity at the outset.” He said that his client realised what he had done was wrong and the harm done to the children who were abused for the photos to be taken. Cox, he said, was in a 30-year relationship with his partner who had poor health and needed his help to get around. Cox will also have to register as a sex offender.