September 2011 Child porn store worker spared jail A member of staff at Old Mills Tesco found with more than 20,000 obscene images and films of young boys on his computer after child exploitation officers in America tipped off Avon and Somerset Police has been spared imprisonment. Pensford man William Stephen Hunt, 48, appeared before Bristol Crown Court on Friday also charged with attempting to distribute obscene images of children and encouraging boys whom he believed to be under the age of consent to take pictures of themselves to send to him. The pictures and films included a number of level five images, the rating for the most sickening child abuse images and the court heard how Hunt had last downloaded illegal images just 1 hour and 45 minutes before police raided his parents’ home. When interviewed by police Hunt gave a full and frank confession about his obsession with collecting sickening images, stored with file names such as “boy shared” on a mass of computing equipment, hard drives and memory sticks. He told officers he mainly used his computers for “dodgy stuff” and that he searched the internet most days for child pornography after becoming interested in the images in 2000 after initially searching for pictures of gay teens within adult porn sites. He described himself as “unable to resist the temptation to view images” and although he had tried to abstain over the years the intervals between viewing the pictures became shorter and shorter. Defending Hunt, solicitor Nicola Smailes said her client was a vulnerable and depressed man with few social skills who had recently started to self-harm and was on sick leave from his job because his lack of self-worth. She added that her client had undertaken the Lucy Faithfull Foundation course that tries to make child sex offenders understand the consequences of their actions. She said: “He told me he saw this as a fantasy world and the course had helped him to understand the reality behind the pictures and that he indirectly caused the abuse of children, which he had not previously considered. “He deleted pictures if they looked distressed as he didn’t want to accept this.” Sentencing, Judge Julian Lambert said if it had been shown Hunt had been distributing child porn and indecent images he would have been facing a significant custodial sentence. But there was no evidence the images had been distributed to anyone else, the judge added, and there was no evidence the people he had contacted actually were children, because of many people on the internet pretending to be someone they are not. He sentenced Hunt to a three year community order rather than a custodial sentence because he wanted to ensure he was “supervised the maximum the law would permit”. He added: “I have chosen on behalf of society to ensure you are treated.” Hunt must undertake a sex offender rehabilitation order and must not have any contact with a child under the age of 16 years, live in a house with a child under 16, allow a child in the house under the age of 16 or loiter within 50 metres of a school or playground. He must not own or use a computer with internet capabilities other than for the purpose of finding employment and must sign the sex offenders’ register for longer than five years.