A man is due to be sentenced by a crown court judge for downloading and distributing illegal images of children which were found on an iPad at his Eden Valley home.
Danny Wood, 58, entered guilty pleas to a total of five charges when he appeared before Carlisle magistrates’ court this morning.
Wood admitted making 28 indecent photographs of children classed in category A — the most serious — along with 25 in category B and 110 in category C. He further accepted he had distributed four category C images of children, and possessed 11 prohibited images of youngsters.
Court papers showed his offending occurred at Great Salkeld, near Penrith, between June 22 and August 28, 2020.
In a brief address to magistrates during today’s hearing, prosecutor Peter Bardsley said: “Police go to this defendant’s address and find a number of images downloaded on to his iPad.”
There were 20 still and eight moving category A images found.
Because the starting point for sentence was a year’s custody, and the range stretched up to three years, Mr Bardsley suggested the case was too serious to be dealt with by magistrates.
The Bench agreed, committing Wood’s case to Carlisle Crown Court. In the meantime they ordered the preparation of a probation service pre-sentence report.
Wood confirmed his present address was Little Baddow Road, Woodham Walter, near Maldon, Essex; but also that he would be moving to a different property in Maldon in early January.
As he was granted unconditional bail until his next court hearing, Wood was told he must now sign the sex offenders’ register with immediate effect.
