A KENILWORTH company director who admitted downloading indecent images of children as young as five has escaped being jailed.
And a judge told Stephen Nevey he could not be sentenced for the more extreme images in his possession as he had only been charged for images found on one computer.
The 57-year-old. of Clinton Lane, appeared at Warwick Crown Court to be sentenced after pleading guilty to two charges of making indecent images of children.
He was given a community order for 12 months, with a rehabilitation activity for 20 days, and was ordered to register as a sex offender for five years.
Prosecutor Peter Cooper said police went to Nevey’s home with a search warrant in August last year. A laptop was seized, as was an Apple MacBook, and when he was interviewed Nevey admitted he had been downloading indecent images of children.
The laptop was found to be broken, and no information could be obtained from it by police hi-tech experts, but the images which were the subject of the charges were recovered from the MacBook.
There were three category A images, defined as more extreme, and 44 lesser category C images of children.
Mr Cooper said a hard drive was also examined and showed Nevey had used terms specifically searching for more extreme images. Nevey claimed he got no sexual satisfaction from them.
He said there had been about two dozen such images, including ones of children as young as five.
He added that Nevey, who was a previous good character, had in the past been involved in making presentations to children as part of his business, which he would now be prohibited from doing.
William Douglas-Jones, defending, said Nevey, described as a ‘motivational speaker,’ and his wife were directors of their own company, and the conviction and ban from working with children would have ‘a huge impact’ on the business.
Sentencing Nevey, Judge Sylvia de Bertodano told him: “I am sentencing you for what you are charged with.
“This was out of character. From what I have read, you will not be doing anything like this again.
“You are in a very different category to most people I see for these sorts of offences.”
