No jail term for child-porn man

A CONVICTED Internet pervert from Oldham has escaped jail again after being caught accessing more indecent images of children on the web.

Laurence Perry (57) — who was first convicted of similar offences nine years ago — was logging on to various websites and paying for images of youngsters using his credit card.

Perry’s collection was uncovered by police in August last year as a result of Operation Myosis, an investigation into the purchase of indecent images from the Internet, conducted by the Metropolitan Police.

Officers traced Perry and searched his house in Bridson Street, Clarksfield, where two computers were found.

One, connected to the Internet, had 22 indecent pictures of children and two movie files of similar material stored on it.

The second computer contained 100 still images. Four of these were in the most serious categories.

Perry was yesterday sentenced at Manchester’s Minshull Crown Court to 17 weeks in prison, suspended for 18 months, for possessing indecent images.

He will also be on supervision over that period as well as being disqualified from working with children.

Perry will be placed on the sex offenders’ register for 10 years and on a previous court appearance was subjected to a sex prevention order over the same period.

Perry had already spent 171 days in custody for these offences.

Investigation support officer Ian Addison said outside court: “Perry has today been sentenced for downloading photographs of children being sexually abused.

“The actions of Perry, and others who download these images, fuel the trade of child sexual abuse.

“Today’s result sends a clear message to those who believe that they can obtain these images and get away with it: they will be pursued and tracked down by the police.”

Perry was found guilty in 2000 of 20 offences of possessing indecent images of children. He had hundreds of indecent images on his computer.

He received a three-year probation order and was place on the sex offenders’ register for five years.