A 47-year-old Derry man has been jailed for 16 months at the city’s Crown Court for making and possessing thousands of indecent photographs of children.
Paul O’Kane, of Clonmeen Drive, Strathfoyle, had pleaded guilty at a previous court to a total of 42 specimen offences committed between July 2001 and August last year.
Thirty-three of the charges related to the making of indecent or pseudo-photographs of children.
Nine charges related to the possession of indecent photographs of children on 20 August last year.
Passing sentence, Judge Phillip Babington said eight months of the sentence would be spent in custody followed by eight months on supervised licence.
One of the conditions of the licence is that O’Kane is not allowed contact with children under the age of 18 without the supervision of Social Services.
He is also prohibited from using computers or mobile devices capable of accessing the Internet.
O’Kane is also to be placed on the Sex Offenders Register for 10 years.
A previous court hearing heard when police searched the accused’s home on 20 August last year, he handed them a box file of discs and told officers “this is what you are looking for.”
The court heard two other storage devices, two laptops, a tower computer and two external hard drives were also removed and, after examination, were found to contain between 2,000 and 4,000 indecent images of children.
The court was told 884 images were category one, the lowest category, 94 were level two images, 15 were level three and one level four.
Files also contained 42 level one movies, 110 level two films and eight level four movies.
The court was told the images were of children as young as seven or eight years of age up to the age of 15 or 16.
The court was told O’Kane admitted to police he had an interest in naturism but denied he had a sexual interest in children.
O’Kane, who had breached his bail conditions by accessing a computer, had been in custody awaiting sentencing.
At today’s hearing, he spoke only to confirm his name and date of birth and showed no emotion as sentenced was passed.
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