Paedophile Jonathan O'Hanlon downloaded child abuse images after hearing other sex offenders talk about sick websites
by Julia Roberts
A convicted paedophile who downloaded more than 30,000
images of child abuse after hearing other sex offenders in prison
talking about what could be found on the internet has been jailed
for two years.
Jonathan O'Hanlon was said to be "particularly curious" about
the images and stories - and his own interest in them was
"triggered" a few years after his release.
Maidstone Crown Court heard when police analysed computers found
at his home in May, they discovered 12,461 images categorised as
levels one to three - with one being the least
serious - and 3,197 categorised at level four and the
highest level of five.
Level five images can depict scenes of sado-masochism or
bestiality.
A further 14,116 images at levels one to three and 1,789 at
levels four and five had been deleted.
O'Hanlon, who was jailed for nine months in 1998 for possession
of an indecent photograph and gross indecency with a five-year-old
girl, admitted six offences of possessing indecent photographs and
six of making indecent photographs between January 2004 and May
this year.
The 50-year-old, of High Street, Tonbridge, asked for a further
five offences of making indecent images to be taken into
consideration.
Judge Michael Carroll said custody was inevitable for offences
that "perpetuate abuse".
Describing the number of images as "huge", he
added O'Hanlon had shown a "determined effort to collect this
filth".
Iestyn Morgan, prosecuting, told the court O'Hanlon
downloaded file sharing software and used it deliberately to look
at child pornography.
He said it was "some relevance" that a number of the images were
stored in the shared folder.
"These are theoretically accessible to others in the share file
network," he explained. "There is no evidence to suggest that they
were shared but they were potentially available."
Jonathan O'Hanlon was
sentenced at Maidstone Crown Court
Mr Morgan added although O'Hanlon was co-operative with the
police, he denied being sexually aroused by what he saw.
Katherine Lewis, defending, said he had originally ignored the
comments he overheard while in prison, but then made "an extremely
foolish decision".
"At times he looked at them to see if there was anything that
could shock him," she added. "The was some material that would
disturb him to the extent that it would put him off looking at the
images for a number of months."
The court heard that since his arrest, O'Hanlon had sought help
from child protection charity, the Lucy Faithfull Foundation.
As part of his sentence, O'Hanlon was also made subject to
a sexual offences prevention order and ordered to sign on the sex
offenders' register - both for a period of 10 years.
He was also barred from working with children.
21/11/12
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