A PAEDOPHILE caught with almost 140,000 indecent images of children as young as two on his mobile phones and laptop has avoided an immediate prison sentence.
Daniel Burgess, 29, of Farndale Road, Baildon, tried to delete pornographic images when first caught by police and then got a second mobile phone in order to carry on with his offending until caught again 15 months later.
He will now have to register as a sex offender for the next decade and will be subject to a sexual harm prevention order for the same period.
Prosecutor Richard Walton told Bradford Crown Court how Burgess was found by police lying on his bed and looking at his mobile phone, which he tried to snatch away when they asked for it.
At the time he was caught, he was already on bail for an earlier offence of making indecent images of children.
The court heard that police officers went to Burgess' home at 8.05am on November 25, 2021, and seized a laptop, which was in the process of deleting files.
That deletion was stopped and Burgess was taken to a police station where he was arrested and cautioned.
An examination of his devices revealed 83,812 indecent images of which 203 were videos. Of the videos, 142 were in Category A, the most serious.
Some were accessible but others had been deleted.
Officers returned to Burgess’s home on February 21, 2023, to carry out a further search and went to his bedroom where they found him in bed holding a mobile phone.
They asked for it and Burgess pulled away, but officers managed to take hold of the phone.
He was arrested again.
The phone – a different device to the previous phone, which had been seized – was found to contain 54,879 indecent still images plus 53 videos. Of the videos, 28 were of Category A.
On both occasions, there was evidence that Burgess had been accessing or bookmarking “numerous” pornographic websites to look for images of underage children.
Some of the children were as young as two years old.
During two interviews with police Burgess replied “no comment” to all questions asked.
He was subsequently charged with making indecent images of children and sent for trial, where he pleaded guilty on the second day to the majority of charges before evidence could be called.
The court heard that Burgess was of previous good character, had not appeared in court before, and that he was supported by his parents, who had written a reference for him.
Mr Recorder Bryan Cox KC said the “sheer number” of images found on Burgess’s devices, the age of the children involved, and that he was on bail for the first offences when he committed the second set, were “serious aggravating factors”.
He said a prison sentence was “amply justified” but that it was not necessary to send Burgess to prison immediately.
But he warned him: “If you get involved in this sort of behaviour in future it’s almost inevitable that you will be sent to prison.”
He sentenced Burgess to 12 months imprisonment suspended for two years for the Category A images, and nine months for Category B and C images, both to run concurrently.
He also ordered him to undertake 50 rehabilitation activity requirement days for therapeutic support and guidance and to carry out 200 hours of unpaid work in the community.
Recorder Cox ordered the forfeiture and destruction of both mobile phones and the laptop.
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article