Man did not search child images for gratification, court hears
A man from Shropshire facing child porn charges told police he did not download any images for sexual gratification, a jury has heard.
Peter Evans told police during interview he was concerned at how easy indecent images were to access and wanted to compile a dossier to hand in to television bosses to expose this, Shrewsbury Crown Court was told.
Evans told police that when he had first seen an image, which he says he had accessed accidentally, he felt "physically sick".
The claim was made after Evans had been arrested following the discovery of images on his home computer by officers in January 2012. Police seized the computer after executing a search warrant at Evans' home in Ludlow Road in Church Stretton.
Evans said he would not subscribe to any sites but would repeatedly view them to see how long it would be before they were taken down. He bookmarked the sites on his computer so he could find them, the court was told.
He told police that over a couple of years he had been compiling images for a Powerpoint presentation which he was going to show to Channel 4 bosses and police.
When asked if he got any sexual gratification from the images, Evans said: "Children are children, they are not sex objects."
He also told police that he understood this was a worldwide problem, but said he felt he had to do something to help.
Shrewsbury Crown Court heard yesterday (FRI) that indecent images of children were found on a computer taken from Evans' home - and a further picture of a child was found inside an envelope alongside several pictures of adult pornography.
Evans, 62, denies eight charges of making indecent images of children, a further five charges of possessing indecent images of children and one count of possessing with intent for show indecent images of children.
They relate to a period between January 12 2000 and January 21 2012.
The jury has been told police found 83 indecent images of children in a folder that had been tucked away with adult pornographic images on his hard drive.
The pictures had been created between January 2011 and January 2012.
Police also found evidence of further images that had been deleted by Evans, with a further 130 indecent pictures that he had got rid of by clearing out his internet cache.
In interview Evans admitted the searches for images he had done took place in the early hours of the morning or late evening.
The trial continues.
