BANBURY MAN WITH A DARK PAST SENTENCED AGAIN FOR CHILD ABUSE IMAGES
A paedophile sentenced for possession of child sex abuse images has appeared in court again after police found further images on his devices.James Clarke, also known as James Williams, appeared at Oxford Crown Court on Friday (January 10) to be sentenced for three counts of possession of an indecent photograph of a child, one count of possession of a prohibited images of a child and one count of distributing an image of a child.
The 25-year-old was first sentenced in May last year for similar offences and was handed a community order.
At the time, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said it was ‘unlikely’ he’d be charged with further offences.
However, once police completed analysis of Clarke’s devices, it was found he had shared a 7GB file with videos of child sex abuse.
Clarke, of Elizabeth Rise, Banbury, was handed a 16 month prison sentence, suspended for two years, by Judge Ian Pringle – who dubbed the sentencing a ‘rather unusual case’ due to the delay in charges.
He said: “I didn’t know [about the] distribution.
That is a very serious matter and carries a stating point of three years.
However […] I can properly suspend the sentence as there’s a very good prospect of rehabilitation and you have very strong mitigation.” During sentencing, prosecutor Tulay Hodge explained that a further 315 Category A images had been found on the defendant’s devices as well as 131 Category B images, and 66 Category C images.
It was also discovered the Clarke had been using a Russian photo sharing website as well as a large data sharing site.
In October 2022, Clarke had shared 7GB of child sex abuse images with an undercover police officer.
There were around 164 videos.
Clarke was arrested on January 17, 2023 but was only charged with some counts despite Clarke’s defence barrister stating the investigation had been completed by his first sentencing date.
The court that Clarke has ‘educational difficulties’ and ‘was not confident’ in school, causing him to be ostracised.
His barrister explained that he had been diagnosed with autism and works closely with adult social services.
She added that he has aspirations to gain long time employment and has made ‘fantastic progress’ with his community order and is now more independent.
As well as his suspended sentence, Clarke is also still subject to his originally five year Sexual Harm Prevention Order which still has three and a half years left.
