A supermarket worker caught with hundreds of images of child sex abuse told police he had become "desensitised" through a long-standing addiction to pornography, a court has heard.
Robert Tiley's partner contacted the police after finding computer software which would allow him anonymous access to the so-called dark web.
Officers subsequently found almost 500 indecent images on his phone, and a judge said it defied logic that somebody who was a father himself could take delight in viewing such photographs.
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Sian Cutter, prosecuting, told Swansea Crown Court that in 2008 Tiley's long-term partner first became aware that there may be a problem when she found a video clip which looked like it may contain indecent images - she challenged the defendant, and he claimed he had not downloaded the file.
The court heard that in June last year the partner was using the internet for unrelated matters when she found evidence that Tiley had installed a Tor browser, software that allows users to access the web - including the dark web - without being traced. She challenged the 39-year-old defendant and, her suspicions raised even more by his answers, went to the police.
Officers subsequently executed a search warrant at Tiley's address and seized his mobile - on the phone they found almost 500 indecent images including dozens in Category A which show the most extreme kinds of sexual abuse. In his police interview the father-of-two said he had been addicted to pornography since childhood, and his viewing of such material over the years had "desensitised" him. He told officers he wanted help for his addiction.
Robert Tiley, of Upper Queen's Road, Aberystwyth, Ceredigion, had previously pleaded guilty to making - downloading - indecent images of Categories A, B and C when he appeared in the dock for sentencing. He has no previous convictions.
Ian Ibrahim, for Tiley, said the defendant had provided the police with the PIN for his phone, and had co-operated with their investigation. He said Tiley had moved out of the family home and had "essentially lost his family", and had also been suspended from his job in customer services with a large supermarket company. He added that the defendant had voluntarily sought help from the Lucy Faithfull Foundation, a charity which works to prevent child sexual abuse.
Judge Geraint Walters told Tiley that he, and people like him, needed to understand that the children in the downloaded images were real children somewhere in the world being horribly sexual abused. He said it "defied logic" that somebody who was himself a father could "take delight" in seeing similar youngsters being abused. And the judge said that to call it an addiction "normalised" behaviour that only someone with "warped senses" could do.
Judge Walters said the reality of the situation was, given the sentencing guidelines and the defendant's lack of previous convictions, if he were to send the defendant into immediate custody it would only be for a relatively short period - and that would mean there would not be enough time for work to be done with him to tackle his problem.
Giving the defendant a one-third discount for his guilty pleas the judge sentenced him to six months in prison suspended for two years, and ordered him to complete a rehabilitation course and a Horizons sex offenders course. Tiley will be a registered sex offender for the next seven years, and was made the subject of a sexual harm prevention order for the same length of time to control his access to the internet.
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