Rugby man jailed for having indecent images of children aged three upwards

Michael Corner, 54, of Bracken Drive, Rugby, was jailed for 20 months at Warwick Crown Court after pleading guilty to three charges of making indecent images of children and one of possessing extreme pornography.

He was also ordered to register as a sex offender for ten years.

Prosecutor Marcus Harry said: “He came to the attention of the authorities because he was communicating with a man who was arrested by the police.

“It was on that man’s computer that the chat was found between him and the defendant between May and July 2012.”

Their online chat led to Corner being arrested in January last year.

His computer was seized, and on it officers found some of the online chat and more than 200 indecent images of children, both boys and girls aged from about three upwards.

When he was first interviewed, Corner made no comment.

But in a later interview after the images had been found, he described himself as ‘a total paed,’ and said his preference was for children and between six and 12.

Judge Sylvia de Bertodano questioned why Corner had not been charged with distribution.

But Mr Harry explained: “The chat was found, but there is no direct evidence of a picture actually being sent.”

Mr Harry said that Corner said he was gay and preferred males in their mid to late teens, and told the police the only way he could get them to do what he wanted on camera was to ‘give them what they wanted’ by showing them the indecent images of children.

Jasvir Mann, for Corner, urged the judge not to jail him, but to pass ‘a constructive sentence,’ arguing: “That would be a better measure of protection for the public at large.”

And he added: “There is genuine remorse. It has been a very long time since I’ve seen someone so physically affected by a court appearance. He was physically shaking this morning.”

But jailing Corner, Judge de Bertodano told him: “The images on your computer were found in the context of pages and pages of chat between you and other men about attraction to young children, and in fact to very young children including babies.

“You say now this was put on, and that you did not really feel that.

“Whether you did or not, what makes this so serious is that for whatever purpose, you showed the images to other people.

“I accept there is not a distribution charge, and I am not sentencing you for distribution, but for having them and showing them to other people.

“These are real images of real children. They are made for a market.

“Children are abused so that market can be satisfied – and that market is made up of people like you.

“Children like those babies are abused to feed the market of people who want to see these images, and you not only looked at them, but showed them to other people.

“I accept your life is in many ways very sad and very lonely. But the sentence must be immediate.

“The message must go out that if people look at images of children being sexually abused and show them to other people, they will go to prison.”