May 2004 Child porn was used as therapy A BUSINESSMAN who downloaded hundreds of indecent pictures of children claimed he had himself been the victim of a paedophile ring. Trevor David Cutler, 40, of Shillito Road, Parkstone in Poole, admitted 20 counts of making indecent images of children – encompassing a total of 237 pictures. But a judge yesterday spared him jail. Acting on intelligence from Operation Ore – an inquiry into internet child pornography – police searched Cutler’s home in December 2002 and examined computer equipment. Though they didn’t find anything, Cutler himself directed them towards a zip disk at his business. Cutler runs a company called Maintenance Services Electrical Limited in Parkstone and the court heard the firm had 21 employees and had contracts with JP Morgan and the Ministry of Defence. Hamish Dunlop, prosecuting at Bournemouth Crown Court, said the disk contained 237 images of young people in suggestive poses. Although the majority were in the lowest categories of seriousness, two related to the most extreme forms of indecent photographs. The court heard Cutler made an early admission of guilt to police. Richard Griffiths, defending, told the court that from the age of eight to 13 Cutler had been passed around a paedophile ring and abused by five men. Mr Griffiths said: “This offence came about in a cack-handed attempt at self-help – using the internet he attempted to find self-help groups and other people who had suffered child abuse. In the course of that he found images of child abuse which helped him to normalise what happened. “He knows he shouldn’t have done it but he did it for perhaps the best of reasons. “He is a classic story of a cycle of abuse.” Sentencing Cutler to a three-year community rehabilitation order, Judge Samuel Wiggs gave credit for his previous good character and early guilty plea. He said Cutler was spared prison because the sentence he could have received was disproportionate to the impact on his employees, who could have lost their jobs if the business collapsed. He told Cutler: “You need substantial help – that help is not only for your own benefit but for the protection of the public.” Cutler was ordered to attend a sex offenders’ group work programme, register under the Sex Offenders Act and pay £300 prosecution costs.