February 2021 Holmfirth pervert caught with photos and videos of children being raped A pervert claimed he downloaded photos and videos of children being raped out of ‘curiosity’. Stephen Cowap was caught with thousands of indecent images of children including child rape or torture but continued to deny being sexually interested in children. The 45-year-old was handed a suspended sentence yesterday (Tuesday) after pleading guilty at the first opportunity to three counts of making indecent images of children. Leeds Crown Court heard police forced entry into his house on Slaithwaite Road in Holmfirth on June 17, 2019 Prosecutor Catherine Duffy said a computer tower and two USB sticks were seized. Cowap, who had not been home at the time of the raid, attended Huddersfield police station the following day. In his first police interview, he said he used the internet to watch adult porn but admitted his devices would contain images of underage teenagers. He then admitted coming across a website that hosts images of child sex abuse and downloading about 50 images to a folder on his desktop. He then admitted some of those images would be of naked children dancing, but claimed it was hard to judge their ages and he is not sexually interested in children. The devices were later analysed and found to contain thousands of indecent images of children. A number of images had been deleted. Only 4,379 of the images were categorised. Of those, 117 images were in the most serious category, 45 of which were photos and 72 of which were videos. More than 130 were in category B and the remaining 4,129 were in category C. He had searched the internet for the dark web browser Tor and for similar websites to a website he had already accessed that hosts child abuse images. In his second police interview, he admitted using Tor and having indecent images of children on his USB sticks as well. He said he looked at the images ‘out of curiosity’ and was disgusted with him and ashamed of what he had done. Cowap was handed a 10-month prison sentence, suspended for two years, with requirements to complete 30 days of rehabilitation activity and 200 hours of unpaid work. He was also made subject to a 10-year sexual harm prevention order