Scout man's child porn shame

Andrew Dart, a former shop manager of Peglers Up The Hill, High Street, Arundel, downloaded the images onto his laptop, a separate hard drive, on floppy disks and CD Roms, Chichester Crown Court heard last week.

The 34-year-old, of Melbourne Road, Goring, from 2nd Worthing Scout Group, pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to five charges of making indecent photos of children and 10 charges of possessing indecent photos of children.

On Friday, a judge ordered him to carry out 240 hours' community punishment and also put him on the sex offenders' register for five years.

Prosecuting, Sarah Earley told the court Dart's wife, Sarah, knew of his perversions for at least two years, but he continued to work with boys aged up to 14 at the hut in Bruce Avenue, Worthing.

Police searched his home on January 11 and seized and searched his computer files where they the found images.

The defendant, a former butcher, who formerly managed the camping shop in Arundel, was interviewed twice and admitted accessing and downloading child pornography, the court was told.

Speaking on her husband's behalf as part of his mitigation, Mrs Dart said he told her he liked looking at pornographic images of children before they were married.

They discussed his problem and she agreed to help after he insisted he wanted to stop. She told the court they had not known where to turn because they were scared of the consequences.

"It did drop off when we got together," she said. "When I found out he had been using his credit cards I took them away."

Selwyn Shapiro, defence counsel, said Dart should be given credit for showing remorse and being honest with the authorities from the start.

He told the court although money was tight, the couple had found the fees to pay for counselling sessions.

Judge Anthony Thorpe said: "Offences of possession of indecent photographs of children are usually so serious that neither a fine alone, nor a community sentence, can be justified for them and require only custodial terms.

"Courts have a special duty to protect the young and vulnerable in society, particularly from acts of depravity, and they can only do so by passing appropriate sentences to make it clear that such crimes will not be tolerated.

"Happily, here, you did not make sexual advances to any child '“ if you had, you would be receiving a heavy custodial sentence.

"You did not seek contact with children for sexual purposes via the internet or any other way, nor did you distribute any of these photographs.

"It is also clear that you do not pose a direct threat to children and are receiving treatment for your deviant behaviour."