South Yorkshire man downloaded child abuse images of children as young as three and viewed 'extreme' pornography

Sheffield Crown Court heard today, Thursday, June 9, how police officers ‘acting on information’ raided the home of Nicholas Page on November 23, 2020, and seized a number of electronic devices, including an Acer laptop.

Prosecuting barrister Neil Coxon said Page, of Lakeside Rise in Askern, Doncaster, was arrested on suspicion of making indecent images of children, and his devices were subsequently analysed by officers.

"It was found to have a number of indecent images of children,” Mr Coxon said, adding that there were 27 images of Category A, which is the most severe of the legal categories.

Page, aged 60, was also found to have have downloaded 31 images and three videos of Category B; 15 images and one video of Category C, as well as 88 images and one video defined as ‘extreme pornography,’ some of which involved bestiality, the court heard.

Mr Coxon told the court how when Page was arrested, he told officers: “There are some websites I go on. They’re a bit dodgy but I don’t download images of kids.”

Page’s laptop was found to contain four programmes with the ability to make viewed files ‘inaccessible’, Mr Coxon said.

He added: "The children depicted are between three and 15-years-old, with the vast majority aged between eight and 10-years-old.”

Analysis of Page’s laptop revealed he had used what Mr Coxon described as the ‘usual’ search terms in cases involving indecent images of children.

Mr Coxon said that during two police interviews, Page said he was responsible for the content found on his laptop, and accepted he had searched for pornographic material online, but said the indecent images may have been downloaded when he was looking for ‘legal’ pornographic content.

Page, who had a clean criminal record prior to this set of offences, also denied having a sexual interest in children.

He pleaded guilty to three counts of making indecent images of children, with each count relating to the different categorisation of the images found on Page’s laptop, and to one count of possessing extreme pornographic images at an earlier hearing.

Discussing Page’s mitigation with the judge, Recorder Ian Mullarkey, defence barrister Ella Embleton said the ‘crux’ of her mitigation related to the amount of time it had taken for Page’s case to reach court, and to the ‘onerous’ bail conditions he had been subjected to in the 19 months since his arrest.

Recorder Mullarkey also referenced other points of mitigation put forward on Page’s behalf, including ‘marital problems’ and the ‘impact an immediate prison sentence would have on others’ around him.

He sentenced Page to 12 months in prison, suspended for 18 months, and told him: “You must understand that those who view such images support the horrible trade of indecent images and allow others to justify the crime of those images being made, often in far away places.”

Recorder Mullarkey also ordered Page to complete 40 rehabilitation activity requirement days and 120 hours of unpaid work, made him the subject of a 10-year sexual harm prevention order, and placed him on the sex offenders’ register for the same period of time.