A LLANELLI man who was found to have more than 230 indecent images of children on a mobile phone, has narrowly avoided prison. This was despite admitting that he had a ‘significant sexual interest in children’.
Marc Allan Francis of Llys Westfa, Llanelli, was sentenced this on Thursday (Apr 13) at Swansea Crown Court after admitting to three charges.
The court heard how a mobile phone which was seized from 30-year-old Francis.
It was found to contain 51 indecent images of children in category A (the most abhorrent kind), 29 of category B and 153 of category C.
The Crown Prosecution Service told the court how on March 9, police executed a warrant at the defendant’s property and asked Francis to hand over any devices.
Francis gestured the police towards the bedroom, where they located a Samsung mobile phone on the bed and the defendant provided the passcode.
However Francis then asked to go to the toilet and officers noticed something in his trouser pocket, upon a search a second device, a Huawei mobile phone was found.
All 233 images were found on Huawei. The Samsung mobile was unable to be examined as the screen was broken.
Francis admitted that he was part of a group on Twitter and Telegram that sent porn back and forth, but denied having any sexual interest in children.
The court heard that within the content of the images, some of which were videos, the contents contained children as young as between the ages of 6 and 8 performing sexual acts on each other.
During the course of police interviews, the defendant replied ‘no comment’ to most questions, however when asked if he had any sexual interest in children he answered no.
The Prosecution argued that the offences were aggravated by the fact that some of the contents found were moving images.
His Honour Judge P H Thomas KC warned Francis’ defence barrister that Francis’ claim of having no sexual interest in children was ‘implausible’.
Whilst a pre-sentencing report was compiled by the probation service, Francis still maintained that he had no interest in children but got a ’buzz’ out of breaking the law.
Francis’ defence barrister told the court that his client “now accepts that at the time of offending he did have a sexual interest in children”.
Whilst passing sentence, Judge Thomas KC said: “It’s quite the implausible excuses you put forward, you do have a sexual interest in children.
“It is only when you fully accept that you can be helped.
“ You had a large number of images, far more than can be obtained accidentally.
“That in my view shows a significant sexual interest in children.
“These are not just pictures, they are real children, being abused somewhere in the world, sold to people like you to masturbate over them.”
For the charge of possession of category a images, the defendant was sentenced to eight months in prison, for the charge of possession of category b and category c images the defendant was sentenced to four months in prison for each. The sentences will run concurrently.
However, due to the prospect of rehabilitation and taking into account the defendant’s previous clean character and caring responsibilities, the sentence was suspended for a period of two years.
Francis must complete 50 rehabilitation days and undertake 200 hours of unpaid work.
He must also register on the sex offenders register for a period of ten years and will be the subject of a sexual harm prevention order for five years.
A forfeiture and destruction order was granted for the two mobiles.
