A PENSIONER who downloaded dozens of indecent pictures and videos of children “out of curiosity” has been spared an immediate jail term.

A judge at Bradford Crown Court told 68-year-old Andrew Pemberton that it was “tragic to see you in these mature years in a criminal court for such serious offences". 

Prosecutor Verity Barnes said Pemberton, of Woodside, Shipley, drew attention to himself by uploading an indecent image of a child onto Facebook on February 11, 2021. The post was reported to the police who traced the identity of the mobile phone used to Pemberton.

When he was arrested at his home on August 4, 2022, he said: “I am a recovering alcoholic. Whatever I’ve done, I would have done it when I was drunk. I think I did it out of curiosity.”

He went on to say: “I did download the images or, should I say, someone sent them to me.”

Pemberton’s mobile phone was seized and found to contain 54 pictures and videos in Category A, B and C featuring children estimated to be aged six to 13.

It also contained eight prohibited images and a video as well as six images and a video of extreme pornography, including bestiality.

Miss Barnes said: “The children were visibly distressed in some of the moving images and in some can be heard audibly crying.”

There was also evidence that Pemberton had tried to conceal some of the images.

Pemberton admitted the offences in interview and later pleaded guilty in magistrates’ court to five counts of making indecent images, possession of extreme pornography, and possession of an extreme image of a child all between May 22 and July 4, 2022.

Mitigating, Hana Ahmed said Pemberton, who was of previous good character, felt “significant remorse” over his offending and that alcohol abuse had been a key factor.

She said: “The defendant accepts his offending. This was instigated by his interest [in] and perusal of pornography, which then led to him visiting social media accounts and then speaking to people and acting in role plays. And then to a stage where he was receiving images from individuals.”

She said he was “highly intoxicated” on the day he received the images and tried to delete them the next day as he was “in shock”.

Sentencing Pemberton His Honour Judge Ahmed Nadim said: “You will understand that the kind of images that you began to take interest in involve extreme exploitation of young and vulnerable children.

“In order to create those images children are abused, they are exploited, they are subjected to physical and sexual humiliation, they are inflicted pain upon. The list of abuse goes on.

“Any society that claims itself to be a civilised society has in place systems and mechanisms designed to prevent that abuse from taking place. By taking an interest in these images you are, in effect, supporting a marketplace and creating a demand.

“It is for that reason that your type of offending is considered particularly serious.”

Pemberton was sentenced to eight months in prison suspended for two years for the Category A images, plus four months for Category B and two months for Category C, both to be served concurrently.

He was ordered to undertake 35 rehabilitation activity requirement days to help develop strategies to avoid regressing, and to take part in a nine-month alcohol treatment programme.

He was made the subject of a ten-year sexual harm protection order and added to the sex offender’s register.

His mobile phone was ordered to be forfeited and destroyed.