A pervert claimed he downloaded images of young boys being raped out of "morbid curiosity".
Married dad Richard Land accessed more than 10,000 sickening images on the dark web, telling police as it was "the last forbidden thing". The 62-year-old denied getting sexual gratification from it and said he did it "almost as a punishment for himself".
Neil Jones, prosecuting, told Newcastle Crown Court: "He said sometimes he would get up in the morning and noticed he had downloaded some files then he would access the material and think to himself 'what have I done' and delete it.
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"He said he was not a paedophile and would never hurt anyone. He accepted it encourages child abuse. He said he only did it when he was depressed or hung-over.
"He said he would sometimes report it to the website. He said 90% of the images were on one file sharer on France and he said he sometimes sent complaints to the website. There's no support for him reporting crime.
"He said he accessed the category A images "to see, out of morbid curiosity".
Land, of Simonside Terrace, Newbiggin-by-the-Sea, Northumberland, pleaded guilty to three offences of making indecent images between 2011 and 2021. He had 1,247 category A images, 1,932 category B and 7,178 category C. The youngest child referred to was a nine-year-old boy. He also admitted possessing an extreme pornographic image involving animals.
Recorder Andrew Smith said Land was "in denial" about not being sexually attracted to children. He added: "The images would make any right-minded person cringe.
"People just don't understand why outwardly-looking respectable people would be interested in imagery of this type. The category A images of of penetrative sexual activity with adults and some were as young as nine years old.
"These are vulnerable nine-year-old children who are being raped. That's what some of the pictures show, little children being raped.
"When people like you are downloading these images, the downloading of the images and watching of them fuels the industry and means more little nine-year-old boys are going to be raped somewhere in the third world and videoed and put on the internet."
The judge added: "Sometimes members of the public who hear about these types of cases don't understand why judges don't say these are disgraceful offences and send people to custody for three, four, five years. The reality is people like you who have looked at images like this can sometimes go on to commit contact offences.
"The probation service have done a careful assessment and think you are a low risk of contact offences. Judges have to decide what sentence will punish but also reduce the risk of offences in the future. The probation service can do good work with people like you."
Fiona Lamb, defending, said Land's wife stands by him and wrote a reference and attended court. The court heard he is of previous good character and that there is "another side to him".
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