Computer paedophile jailed

IPSWICH paedophile William Drummond is today beginning a prison sentence for downloading thousands of images of child pornography.

Drummond, of Lanark Road, Ipswich, has been jailed for two months after admitting 16 counts of making indecent photos of children at an earlier hearing at South East Suffolk Magistrate's Court.

The 48-year-old had also previously pleaded guilty to one charge of possessing indecent images taken from the internet. All the offences had taken place between Febuary and December last year.

The court heard police had visited Drummond's home on February 13 this year after they received information about him viewing pictures and seized his computer.

Specialist officers examined the computer and discovered it held 5,827 images of naked children or youngsters involved in sexual activity.

Of these images 5,718 were at level one - the lowest of five levels used to categorise child porn.

A further 102 images were classified at level two with the remaining seven at level three.

Mitigating, Hugh Rowland told the court Drummond had thought he had deleted the images from the computer and had not been involved in distributing them.

He said: "He does not accept that he was knowingly in possession of almost six thousand images because as far as he was concerned they had been deleted from the system.

"He would flick through pictures very quickly until he found something he wanted to look at, and it is fair to say his interest was equally, if not more so, in adult pornography.

"The majority of the images were of pre-pubescent children."

Sentencing Drummond to eight weeks in prison for each of the offences, to run concurrently, magistrate Anne Walker said at Tuesday's sentencing: "Despite the mitigation we do feel these offences were so serious they pass the custody threshold."