Sheffield Crown Court: Pervert downloaded pictures showing child sex abuse and 'people having sex with horses'

David Tovey, aged 63, was brought before Sheffield Crown Court on June 16, 2022 to be sentenced for three offences relating to material he downloaded, including images involving the sexual abuse of children and extreme pornography involving bestiality.

The court was told how prior to this set of offences, Tovey had a clean criminal record, and had therefore previously been legally classified as being of ‘good character’.

Referring to this classification, Recorder Anthony Hawks told Tovey: “You are not a man of good character. Men of good character do not look at extreme images of people having sex with horses, or indecent images of children. Perverts do that. People with a perverted interest in children do that...So you are not a man of good character, in my judgement, you never were.”

He added: “One thing that you, and people like you who look at this sort of material, must understand is that you cannot excuse yourself on the basis that you are not responsible for creating these images you are not to blame.

"Were there no market for this sort of thing, these images would not be produced...and catastrophic harm would not be caused to children in creating these images.”

Prosecution barrister, Ian West, said Tovey’s offending was brought to light after police raided his home on April 2, 2020.

"He handed police his mobile phone and was extremely candid with the police. He admitted there were indecent images on his phone,” said Mr West.

Tovey, of Millard Avenue, Hatfield, Doncaster, also told officers he had two ‘tower’ computers, and indecent images were found on one of those computers, as well as on his phone, the court heard.

Mr West told the court that Tovey had a total of 29 indecent images of children in Category A – the most serious of the legal categories – as well as 15 in Category, 69 in Category C and 12 prohibited images of children.

Extreme pornography, involving bestiality, was also found on Tovey’s devices.

Tovey pleaded guilty to offences of possessing extreme pornographic images; possessing prohibited images of children and making indecent images of children at an earlier hearing.

Referring to his mitigation, Recorder Hawks told Tovey’s defence barrister, Edward Moss ‘the less said the better,’ adding ‘the pre-sentence report does him [Tovey] some credit’.

Recorder Hawks told Tovey that he ‘deserved immediate custody,’ but added that he had been persuaded to suspend his sentence ‘due to his age and the fact you pleaded guilty’.

He sentenced Tovey to nine months in prison, suspended for two years, ordered him to complete 30 rehabilitation activity requirement days, made him the subject of a five-year sexual harm prevention order and placed him on the sex offenders’ register for 10 years.

“The purpose of the rehabilitation activity requirement days is to confront your behaviour, to show some insight into it and to try and prevent you from doing it again,” explained Recorder Hawks.