CIRENCESTER MAN THOMAS JONES AVOIDS JAIL SENTENCE IN MAY 2011 CASE
In May 2011, Thomas Jones, a 52-year-old man from Cirencester who now resides in London, was spared imprisonment after being found with thousands of indecent images of children.Jones pleaded guilty to 16 charges of possessing indecent images, which included dozens of videos.
Cheltenham Magistrates' Court learned that Jones was motivated by curiosity and derived no gratification from the 2,918 photographs and videos of "very young girls" he viewed online over a period of three years.
Prosecutor David Nicholas explained that police were contacted on June 3 of the previous year by Jones’s estranged wife, who discovered the images on the computer in her husband's study at his Cirencester home.
Following his arrest, Jones admitted that he had accessed some inappropriate websites using an old work laptop.
The court heard that Jones was not very computer-literate and mistakenly believed that deleting files would permanently remove them from the hard drive.
Most of the images and videos were classified as level one on the Oliver Image Scale, which ranges from one (least severe) to five (most severe).
Specifically, there were 24 videos and 47 pictures ranked at level two.
Defending Jones, Tim Burrows stated, “It’s a shocking indictment of how the internet works that he was able to access these images just by clicking on links.
He thought he had deleted them, but he’s not very computer-savvy and didn’t realize that simply deleting files doesn’t permanently erase them unless you fully understand the process.” He added, “There’s no suggestion he paid for any images; he viewed images that were freely available.
Mr.
Jones is struggling to understand why he accessed these images and is deeply ashamed.
He has been living under the weight of this over a considerable period.” As part of his sentence, Jones is required to complete a 60-day community sexual offending programme, pay £85 in costs, and is subject to a 24-month community supervision order.
Additionally, he must register as a sex offender for five years.
