Pervert had almost 65,000 child porn images at his Leeds home

A pervert who downloaded an “astonishing” number of extreme sexually abusive images of children on computers at his home has been jailed.
Michael Sutcliffe.Michael Sutcliffe.
Michael Sutcliffe.

A part time judge told Michael Sutcliffe, 42, that members of the public would be appalled if he was not sent straight to prison after a court heard of the graphic nature of the images he had accessed over a five-year period.

Some of the sexually abusive images depicted children and animals.

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West Yorkshire Police officers seized computers and equipment from Sutcliffe’s home in East End Park on June 4 last year. Almost 64,000 illegal images and movies were found. Some 506 images and 27 movies were at category A - the most serious level of offending.

Leeds Crown Court heard Sutcliffe immediately showed the officers where they could find the illegal material and co-operated with the investigation.

He pleaded guilty to six offences of making and one of possessing indecent images of children. He was jailed for 22 months. Stuart Field, mitigating, described Sutcliffe as a “solitary” man who had developed an obsession with the images. Mr Field said his client had felt a sense of relief when officers came to arrest him. He added that Sutcliffe was prepared to accept treatment to address his offending.

Recorder Charles Ekins said: “You have shown remorse. But I wonder, over the four or five year period that you downloaded these images, downloaded these movies, what remorse you felt for these very young children who were the victims of many cases of the most extreme forms of sexual abuse imaginable, which I am satisfied, you viewed for your own sexual gratification.

“The profligacy of which you downloaded the images is astonishing.”