COLIN LEWIS OF REDRUTH SENTENCED IN TRURO FOR CHILD IMAGE OFFENSES IN 2017

In September 2017, a judge at Truro Crown Court declined to grant leniency to Colin Lewis, a 48-year-old from Coach Lane, Redruth, who had downloaded a 35-minute video of a young girl being raped. Lewis pleaded guilty to three counts of making indecent images of a child and one count of possessing indecent images. Prosecutor Ramsay Quaife outlined that Devon and Cornwall Police, investigating the use of peer-to-peer software to share child abuse material, identified an IP address linked to Lewis’s home. Authorities seized three devices, discovering a significant collection of images including 14 Category A movies, nine Category B movies, and 1,744 Category C stills, along with 550 movies, all downloaded between August and December 2015. Additionally, Lewis was found to possess 14 still images classified as Category C on March 9 of the same year. Quaife stated, “When interviewed Mr Lewis admitted viewing child sexual abuse images and using peer-to-peer file sharing. He told police that his use of images was an addiction.” The material included acts of penetration involving children as young as eight or nine. During sentencing, Judge Simon Carr remarked, “When your property was attended by police and computers seized police found a significant number of child abuse images and I can’t ignore the fact that some of these were Category A movies and you chose to download a 35-minute film of a nine or 10-year-old girl being engaged in full penetrative sex. It’s a business and these girls are abused because people like you download the images and the ordeal no doubt blights the rest of their lives.” Given the large volume of images and the disturbing nature of some videos, Judge Carr decided an immediate custodial sentence was necessary. Lewis was sentenced to seven months in prison, required to sign the sex offenders’ register, and subject to a sexual harm prevention order for five years.