Notts removal man caught with almost 8,000 indecent images of children is spared prison

John Malarek appeared before Nottingham Crown Court on Tuesday, March 2, after admitting the offences at an earlier hearing before magistrates.

Police attended the 57-year-old’s home, in Sunnyside, Worksop, in February last year, where they seized computer equipment, said Tom Heath, prosecuting.

On two devices, investigators found evidence of a total of 7,878 indecent images, of which 267 were classified as Category A - the most extreme.

There were also 381 Category B images of children, and 7,194 Category C images, the court heard. The children in the imaged ranged from 15 to just three years old.

Police also retrieved 32 prohibited images and a further four which were classified as extreme pornography, depicting people performing sexual acts with dogs and horses, the court heard.

“Police attended his home and told him the reason for their presence and he told them that he had been looking at images of young girls,” Mr Heath said. “He said that he had been looking at such images for years.

“He said he was most interested in girls who were aged 16 to 18, but he had clicked on what interested him.”

Malarek had admitted three counts of possession of indecent images of children, possession of extreme pornography and possession of prohibited images of children when he appeared in court last month.

Mitigating, Katrina Wilson told the court: “When searching for those images this had escalated, with him clicking from one image to another, and he was quite surprised about the volume of images.”

Malarek was given a 12-month prison sentence, suspended for two years, and was ordered to complete 30 rehabilitation activity days with the Probation Service, aimed at halting his offending behaviour. He was also ordered to pay £340 in prosecution costs.

Recorder Mark Watson also issued a 10-year sexual harm prevention order, restricting Malarek’s access to the internet, and ordered that the seized electrical items be forfeited and destroyed.

Sentencing, he told Malarek: “These are not victimless crimes, and for each of these images that you found sexually arousing, each child has suffered the most terrible abuse. It’s done so that people like you can satisfy their sexual needs.”

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