8:40am Wednesday 1st October 2008
By Hayley Collins
A PAEDOPHILE has been jailed for three years for downloading more than 9,000 indecent images of children.
Former Winsford man Daniel Tunney, 26, now of Elm Drive, Holmes Chapel, admitted 15 offences of downloading images, one of possessing the images and four offences of distributing the images when he appeared at Chester Crown Court on Friday.
Investigating officers and Judge Elgan Edwards said the images and videos seized from Tunney’s home in East Dudley Street were some of the worst cases of child abuse and torture they had ever seen.
DS Mark Fletcher, from the public protection unit based at Winsford, said: “The images that Tunney had were horrendous.
“We deal with this type of offender day in day out, but this was, in our experience, one of the worst personal collections of images graphically depicting children as young as 18 months old.”
Tunney also admitted refusing to divulge his password, which meant that police had to pass the computers to MI5 in order to access some of the images, which were protected by sophisticated software – the first time such a charge has been heard in Cheshire.
DS Fletcher added: “We will leave no stone unturned and if it’s necessary having to transport computers to London then that is what we will do. What people fail to realise is that sitting in their front room in Winsford downloading these images leads to children being abused and tortured all over the world.”
Judge Edwards recommended the investigating officers – DC Derek Sheridan and DC Gary Brookes – for a commendation.
Tunney’s collection included 370 level five images – the most serious type, which included sadism – 2,404 level four images, 2,010 level three, 697 level two and 3,632 level one images.
The defendant, who posed as a 14-year-old girl on the Internet, was eventually caught when he created an account with a website called Ranchi which is used to discuss the abuse of children.
During the hearing Judge Edwards branded him ‘disturbed’.
“It is astonishing how anyone can get any satisfaction or gratification from watching these images,” he said.
“Anyone who watches this for gratification has a very sick mind.”
Kim Halsall, defending, said Tunney had had a difficult childhood.
“He has had a pretty disturbed childhood,” she said.
“He hasn’t looked at a computer since being arrested.”
Tunney was also banned from working with children for life and placed on the sex offenders’ register for life.
The Guardian asked Cheshire Police for a photograph of Tunney for publication but the request was declined.
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