Andrew Hill secures suspended sentence for client convicted of possession of indecent images.

In: News Published: Tuesday 04 August 2020

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Andrew Hill secures a suspended sentence for a Defendant was convicted of over 1400 Class A images, 1800 Class B and 3,000 Class C images contrary to section 1 of the Protection of Children Act 1978. There had been many searches for illicit material over a 2- year period. The material had been deleted by the use of specialist software designed for such purpose. Despite the lack of a guilty plea the Learned Judge was persuaded to impose a suspended sentence supervision order with the addendum of a programme to address the nature of the offending. The Sentencing Guidelines range from 26 weeks to 3 years for the Class ‘A’ material and in cases without the benefit of a guilty plea from a first- time offender with the amount of illicit material a custodial sentence normally follows. However, in circumstances where there is sufficient prospect of rehabilitation a community order with a sex offender treatment order can be an alternative for sentences below 2 years imprisonment {Section 202 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003}. In this case the Defendant had initially denied the offence but he was to admit his actions in the preparation of the pre-sentence report so benefitting from some remorse and indeed allowing submissions to be advanced on the issue of rehabilitation.