Havercroft pervert blamed friends and family for indecent images

Anthony Emmerson, 43, was arrested after police seized a laptop, mobile phone and two external hard drives from the home on Hillcrest, Havercroft, where he lived with his partner and two children, on January 8 last year.

Leeds Crown Court heard police received information that he had paid to access a website containing illegal indecent images of children.

Emmerson contacted police two days later and said he wanted to “get something off his chest”. He told officers he had been taking anti depressants, which had caused him to go onto the internet and look at the illegal images but insisted that he did not have a sexual interest in children.

Investigations revealed Emmerson had accessed 1,199 indecent images. The court heard 53 images were at level four and five were at level five - the two most serious categories of offending.

Emmerson was interviewed in August but denied responsibility. He claimed he had never seen them before and told officers the laptop had previously belonged to his brother and nephew.

He also named a friend who had previously had access to the computer and another who had installed an operating system on the laptop for him. Emmerson also said his children and partner had used the computer.

When asked about the admission he had made to a police officer, he said he had no recollection of doing so and said a record of the conversation must have been altered.

Emmerson pleaded guilty to 21 offences of making indecent images of children. Stephen Smithson, mitigating, said Emmerson had taken medication to treat a bone disease but it led to him taking illegal class A drugs.

Mr Smithson said: “That is when boundaries disappeared and we can see that his personal life in every aspect - health, work and family relationships - led him to eventually behave in the way that he has.”

Emmerson was made the subject of a three community order during which he must attend a sex offender treatment programme.