Man sentenced at Northampton court for possessing 'absolutely grotesque' indecent images of children

A man was sentenced at Northampton Crown Court for possessing dozens of 'absolutely grotesque' indecent images of children yesterday (Monday, July 5).

Marcus Blackmore was given a two-year community order and will be on the sex offenders register for five years after previously pleaded guilty.

The 46-year-old claimed the offending was an 'escape' from the stress of a serious family illness but some of the images dated to before their diagnosis.

Recorder Sandeep Kainth said: "You are 46 years old, you should really know better. The images are absolutely grotesque.

"Category A, the worst kind of image, generally involves children being raped, it's as simple as that.

"If it wasn't for people like yourself, maybe there wouldn't be the demand online regrettably for children to be abused physically and emotionally, which continues for the rest of their lives."

Blackmore was arrested in July last year after police raided his home following intelligence about indecent images of children being downloaded there, according to Jonathan Eley, prosecuting.

When asked why he thought the officers were there, the father and husband said: "Porn, porn that's wrong, young teens," but replied 'no comment' to every question when interviewed.

Police seized two phones and a laptop, which Blackmore gave the passwords for, and on two of them were 94 indecent images and 24 video of categories A, B and C.

The defendant then admitted downloading the images but maintained he had only looked at them in the last year to get away from his 'very traumatic' domestic situation and got no sexual gratification from them.

But Mr Eley told the court some of the images dated from 2014, which Blackmore could not explain.

Pamela Brain, defending, said: "It was clearly a situation where he was under a tremendous amount of stress emotional trauma and stress because of the very severe illness of [a member of the family].

"He was trying to be the strong, supportive centre of the family and wasn't dealing with the trauma and the difficulties that there clearly were and he started trying to distract himself with initially it was porn as far as adults were concerned.

"It's a story the courts are familiar with, coming across other types of material, illegal material, and these types of offences occurring.

"His life was completely spiralling out of control. There were considerable financial difficulties.

"He got severely in to debt with the tax authorities by the time it got to the end of 2019, he was seriously contemplating suicide, he didn't feel like he could carry on."

Blackmore's family stepped in to help with the financial difficulties, Ms Brain told the court.

After his arrest, the defendant sought psychological help and was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, while he remains married but living separately.

Recorder Kainth said Blackmore, of Ashpole Furlong, Milton Keynes, had already 'lost a great deal' as a consequence of his offending, which he described as opportunistic, rather than 'something more sinister'.

The judge ordered him to complete 160 hours of unpaid work and the community order includes 25 days of rehabilitation activity days, while he will also have a sexual harm prevention order for five years.