[A] man “addicted” to sexual abuse images of children has been sentenced by a judge – despite police being unable to recover any of the illegal images he downloaded.
Samuel Blackburn’s criminal conduct came to light after a Lake District address was visited by police in October. Officers discovered “highly suggestive” search terms on 27-year-old Blackburn’s computer which indicated he sought out images of girls as young as eight.
Carlisle Crown Court heard he deleted the videos “virtually as they were viewed”, using software programmes to wipe clean his hard drive.
Blackburn immediately confessed to his crimes, telling police who traced an IP address he had attempted to disguise to Bowness-on-Windermere: “Yes, it is me.”
Blackburn told officers he had been addicted to viewing images of girls aged 12 since he was the same age, and had tried – without success – to stop it.
He was sentenced today (FRI) having admitted charges of making indecent images, and possessing both ecstasy and cannabis.
Judge James Adkin imposed a three-year community order through which Blackburn, now of Bere Regis, Dorset, must attend an intensive sex offender treatment course.
In addition, he was made subject to the terms of a sexual harm prevention order for five years.
Detective Constable Ryan Parker, Digital Media Investigation Unit, said: “This conviction will hopefully act as a deterrent to those who view and distribute illegal images.
“Blackburn downloaded a vast amount of indecent images of children from a file sharing site for his own gratification. He would then use software to wipe his computer in a bid to evade capture.
“We will continue to prosecute those who abuse children by engaging in this sort of behaviour. Even if a person attempts to hide their offending we will do everything in our power to bring them to justice.
“We encourage anyone who has any suspicions of any sort of abuse to contact us so we can investigate.”
