Man, 64, jailed for possessing 36,000 indecent images

Andrew James Denning admitted a total of three charges when he appeared in the Royal Court and has been jailed for two years 10 months.

Indecent images of children are graded on a C to A ascending scale in terms of their seriousness. He admitted making 26 category A images and 128 category B images, and possessing 36,604 of category C.

Prosecuting, Advocate Sarah Watson told the court how an IP address connected to the downloading of indecent images of children was linked to the defendant’s home. In November 2022 a search warrant was executed there and he was arrested. Five electronic devices were seized.

The investigation took several months. It was time-consuming, challenging, and distressing work for the two people who had to grade the images.

In his first interview, Denning denied downloading indecent images of children. He said he would often scavenge at the Longue Hougue tip and he recalled finding a hard drive there and downloading its contents on to one of his devices.

He said he was shocked when told of the number of images that had been found. In a second interview he told of his personal circumstances and how he had got slowly carried away. He and admitted he had a problem. He would go on websites and look for images of children being provocative or posing.

He denied searching for category A images but admitted downloading files which contained multiple less serious images and said they might have been mixed with those.

Advocate Watson said there had been a level of sophistication in the defendant’s offending and he had attempted to avoid detection. The possession charge dated from 15 November 2022 and the Longue Hougue recycling site had been closed to scavenging since May 2019.

Defending, Advocate Sam Maindonald said there was nothing on her client's record since 1990.

He had candidly admitted to police that his offending went back 10 years. He was ashamed that he had contributed in any way to the sexual exploitation of children.

This had been an immensely salutary and shameful experience for him and he had isolated himself as a result. He had started his own sentence on the day he was arrested.

Judge Catherine Fooks said the huge number of images was an aggravating factor and the court had noted some of the ages he used in his search terms. There was also some video footage.

Grading the images would have taken its toll on those who had to do it.

‘These offences are shocking and you are right to be ashamed by your actions of downloading such images for your own perverted pleasure,’ she said.

The offence relating to category A images was the most serious. Denning was jailed for two years and 10 months on that matter.

Sentences of nine months, and six months, concurrent, were meted for the category B and C images respectively.

He will be subject to notification requirements for a period of five years from his release and forfeiture and destruction of the devices was ordered.