A convicted murderer and sexual predator has been found with almost 1600 indecent images and videos of children after being released from jail.
On Monday, Liverpool Crown Court heard Michael McGrane, 60, of Victoria Street, Southport, downloaded the content over a one year period, ten years after being released from jail in Australia for sexual assault and murder.
Mr Kenneth Grant, prosecuting, told the court that McGrane had been linked to these offences after an investigation by Merseyside Police Online Child Abuse Investigation Team traced an IP address suspected of sharing indecent images of children, to his home address.
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On June 11, 2020, officers went to McGrane’s home where 15 desktop computers, two mobile phones, a laptop, and 250 hard drive disks were seized. Police found 1,585 category C images of children, including 208 prohibited images of children on the devices.
At least 600 of those were videos, and one was one hour long. In his first interview on the day his electronics were seized, McGrane said to the best of his knowledge, there would be no indecent photos on the hard drives. During his second interview on August 27, after all the electronics had been thoroughly examined by authorities, he claimed the devices were second hand.
Judge Brian Cummings KC said: “You, as a possessor of this material, form part of the market without which that material either wouldn’t exist in the first place or certainly would not exist on the industrial scale that we deal with in this court. It would not happen if it wasn’t for people like you, the consumer.”
Mr Simon Christie, defending, told the court that McGrane has not committed any crimes since his arrest. Judge Cummings detailed that in December 2001 while living in Australia, McGrane was convicted of murder, and was given a life sentence.
In July 2003, he was also convicted of 13 offences, six of which involved the use of chloroform or some other stupefying drug to commit an indictable offence, and seven offences of indecent assault against adult females. Following his release in 2013, he was deported back to the UK, where a sexual offences notification order was imposed upon him.
This meant he had to check in quarterly with authorities and inform police of any change of address, places he regularly stays, or plans to travel abroad. On November 21, McGrane pleaded guilty to one count of making (downloading) indecent 1585 category C photographs of children, between June 10 2019 and 12 June 2020, and to possession of 208 prohibited images of children on June 11 2020.
He was sentenced to nine months imprisonment for both counts, and a sexual harm prevention order was also implemented for ten years, alongside the requirement that he be on the sex offenders list. Items related to the offence were also ordered to be destroyed, and a deprivation order prohibiting him from using any device capable of accessing the internet unless he informs the police was also implemented.
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