A 'depraved' retired teacher downloaded more than 60,000 images of children being sexually abused.
Glyndwr Willis, also known as George Williams, amassed a huge collection of indecent and prohibited images of children over years.
Liverpool Crown Court heard Williams continued to search for indecent images even though he knew police were investigating him and despite the fact he was subject to a court order aimed at stopping him from accessing images showing the sexual abuse of children.
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The 72 year old told probation officers he had an addiction to images showing child sexual abuse before a judge jailed him this morning. Nardeen Nemat, prosecuting, said Willis admitted to police he began accessing images of child abuse on the internet in 2011 - three years after he was convicted for possession of indecent images.
She said images could not be traced back to that date but that digital records from a computer recovered from his house provided evidence of him downloading images from at least March 2016. At that time he was still subject to a sexual harm prevention order imposed on him after the 2008 conviction and that order compelled him to tell the police if he had any devices capable of recording or storing images - but he did not do so.
Williams flagrantly disregarded the order until it expired and then continued to amass a huge collection of images. More than 4,000 were deemed to fall within Category A, the most serious, while just under 4,000 were within Category B and almost 52,000 fell within Category C. Williams also had more 13,000 “prohibited” images, which Ms Nemat confirmed were computer-generated and some of which were cartoons.
Police found the images after a tip off and numerous raids on Williams’ New Ferry home. In interviews with officers he admitted he had downloaded them. He later pleaded guilty to making and possessing indecent images and prohibited images of children as well as breaching his sexual harm prevention order. Stephen McNally, defending, said Williams knew he was going to prison and accepted he needed help to address his “obsession”.
He said: “He describes in his own words his accessing of this material as an addiction. Given the amounts accessed, and the length of time over which he accessed them, your honour may well agree with that assessment.”
Judge Anil Murray said Williams’ comments to probation officers made clear he did not understand the damage his actions caused for children in the videos and pictures he downloaded. He said: “You accept you are sexually attracted to children. However, it is clear from that [pre sentence] report that you do not appreciate the seriousness of your actions or the harm that they have caused.” Williams, of Winstanley Road, was jailed for a total of 20 months.
Speaking after his sentencing, Merseyside Police's Detective Constable Rory Quigley said: “We welcome that Williams is now behind bars and can no longer cause harm to children.
“Williams made thousands of vile images and we hope that he will now reflect on the consequences of his utterly depraved actions while serving his jail time.
“Today’s result shows that Merseyside Police are completely committed to stopping the possession and distribution of indecent images and, ultimately protecting children from sexual abuse and those who seek to do them harm. We work with other UK forces, agencies and the Child Exploitation Online Protection centre as well as law enforcement agencies across the world who share our determination to protect children from dangerous offenders, like Williams, online."
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