Shrewsbury man, 72, caught with hundreds of indecent images of children - some as young as four
A Shrewsbury 72-year-old was caught with hundreds of indecent images of children and had been looking at them for 17 years, a court was told.
Barry Childs, 72, of Prestbury Green, Shrewsbury, was sentenced at Shrewsbury Crown Court after previously pleading guilty to five charges.
Childs had admitted three counts of making indecent images of children - in categories A, B, and C, and one count of possessing a prohibited image of a child, along with one charge of possessing an extreme pornographic image.
The court heard Childs was found in possession of a raft of digital devices, including multiple external hard drives, and had admitted that he had been looking at similar material for around 17 years.
Danny Smith, prosecuting, told the court that Childs had used file sharing platforms to download the images - and was in possession of 34 category A images, 18 category B images, and 390 category C images.
The court was told the images depicted children as young as four-years-old, with real children being abused, including images of rape.
His arrest came back in April 2022, after police received information that Childs was using file sharing software to download indecent images of children.
Mr Smith said 16,000 files were downloaded to five IP addresses linked to the Sky Broadband customer 'Barry Childs'.
