June 2022 Southampton man jailed for possessing 47,000 indecent images of children A pervert has been jailed for 14 months for possessing thousands of indecent photos of children. William McDowall from Shirley Road, Southampton appeared at Southampton Crown Court yesterday (June 17) after previously pleading guilty to: Three counts of making indecent photographs or pseudo-photographs of a child, Possessing a prohibited image of a child Possessing extreme pornographic images portraying sexual acts on an animal. The 57-year-old possessed more than 47,000 indecent images of children. On July 30 2021 police arrested McDowall at his home address and seized several items, including two laptops and a hard drive. Forensic examinations revealed he had 47,517 indecent images stored across the three devices from March 2012 to July 2021. More than 9,294 were Category A, the most serious, which depicted babies, toddlers and teenagers being abused, raped or tortured. There were also a handful of images that depicted acts of bestiality, where humans were engaged in sexual acts with animals In his police interview, McDowall admitted he had been viewing indecent images online for 20 years and described himself as a ‘lurker’. McDowall has been jailed for 14 months and ordered to sign the sex offenders register for 10 years.