A paedophile collected hundreds of child abuse images on an iPod and tried to use software to hide his activity from police.
Timothy Byrnes downloaded pictures of children as young as three being raped and kept them on the device in his Wirral home - but was found out after backing up the iPod on a laptop. A judge jailed the 70 year old, who has previous convictions for similar offences, at Liverpool Crown Court this afternoon.
Christopher Hopkins, prosecuting, said Byrnes’ offending only started in 2011 but he had since received numerous convictions for making and possessing indecent images of children. As part of an order granted after his last conviction in June 2019, he was supposed to give police information about any devices he had that could store images and access the internet.
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However, when a probation officer carried out a routine visit to his home in Bebington in January earlier this year he suspected Byrnes had been breaking the rules. Byrnes’ laptop was later searched and it was discovered there were of images of child sexual abuse present from a backup which had taken place when an iPod was plugged into it. The search also showed Byrnes had downloaded two pieces of software aimed at masking his internet activity.
In total, 683 indecent images were found on the laptop and linked to a back up of data from the iPod. Of that total number, 181 fell into the most serious Category A, with some showing children between the ages of three and five being subjected to sexual abuse.
Police returned to Byrnes’ house to attempt to retrieve the iPod they believed originally had the images on but were unable to locate it. Byrnes was eventually charged on the basis of what was on his laptop and he pleaded guilty to possession of indecent images and breach of a sexual harm prevention order earlier this year.
Chris Macmaster, defending, said Byrnes knew he had a serious problem and wanted to address it. Mr Macmaster said Byrnes also had the support of his family and a group of close friends who were hoping that he would be able to address his offending once and for all.
Judge David Aubrey QC said persistent offending like that which was carried out by Byrne created a market which saw children across the globe subjected to sexual abuse. He said: “Each and every image which you downloaded and possessed represents the sexual abuse of a child and if there were not people like you accessing such material it may well be that such material would not be so readily available to like minded persons.”
Byrnes, of Kingsbrook Way, was jailed for three years and two months.
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