A WORCESTER man who downloaded nearly 200 indecent images of children has been told by a judge his actions help fuel child abuse.

Sasha Thomas, aged 38, of Chedworth Drive, Warndon, Worcester, admitted one count of possessing an indecent image of a child and two of making an indecent image of a child at Worcester Magistrates Court on Wednesday.

The court heard how between April 27 and May 12, 2008, Thomas had in his possession 184 indecent images of children, all at level one (the least serious of five.) He also made indecent images of children between July 19 and May 24, 2008 by placing the images on disk.

District judge Bruce Morgan said: “It’s a sad indictment of society that grown men like to look at images of children at that sort of age being abused. If nobody looked at these images, no child would be abused because it would not be worth photographing them. As people look at the images, so the children are abused.”

Matt Dodson, prosecuting, said West Mercia Police received intelligence that Thomas had been downloading indecent images from a Croatian website and raided his home. They seized 15 disks of which two contained indecent images of children.

The first had 44 indecent images of children and the second 57 while a computer tower, also seized, contained 83 stored on sub-folders.

In police interview Thomas said he had been searching for young girls between the ages of 16 and 18 but accepted that the images were of children younger than this.

Mr Dodson, told the court Thomas did not distribute the images to anyone else and that the images were all at level one, showing ‘erotic posing’ rather than sexual activity with a child.

He said: “He denied he gained sexual gratification from viewing the images.”

His solicitor Sam Lamsdale made no statement in defence of her client but a pre-sentence report had already been read by Mr Morgan before sentencing.

Thomas was placed on a three-year community order with a supervision requirement and a requirement he complies with a community sexual offender treatment programme. He was also told to sign the sex offender’s register for five years and to pay £85 costs.

Mr Morgan said he would have to hear an application for a sexual offences prevention order separately on Wednesday, October 13.

- Your Worcester News reporter was the only member of the media at court.