Lying mum and her child-porn son are jailed
Reporter: COURT REPORTER
Date published: 19 April 2011
A mother from Chadderton who lied about downloading child porn to protect her sex-offender son has been jailed alongside him.
Christine Entwistle (49) was working as the deputy manager of St Anne’s CE Primary School Care Club when she schemed with her son, David, to cover up his crimes.
Manchester Crown Court heard that David Entwistle (32) was first convicted of child porn offences 30 months ago. He was banned from using computers except for work or educational purposes by a Sexual Offences Prevention Order as part of his punishment.
In February last year Entwistle, formerly of Manchester Road, Oldham, was arrested because his use of Facebook breached the order.
When his computer was scoured, it was found he had been downloading child porn again — this time of victims as young as five.
The pervert claimed his internet use was allowed because his mother had been doing the typing. He said she sent Facebook messages on his behalf — and went to adult porn sites for him.
Entwistle attempted to explain away the child porn images by saying they had “popped up” while he and his mother were surfing the web for adult material, and that she had clicked “save” by mistake.
Christine Entwistle, of Otley Close, backed up his story to police and faced charges of downloading child pornography. But, after keeping up the lie for almost a year, she admitted she had not downloaded the illegal images.
Now, after admitting perverting the course of public justice, she has been jailed for seven months. David Entwistle, who admitted making and possessing the four illegal images, some of which depicted child abuse, at an earlier hearing, was jailed for 15 months.
Sentencing, Judge Roger Thomas QC said there was ‘no alternative’ but to jail them.
He said the behaviour of the mother-of-three was “staggering” in the case of a mature woman who worked with children.
The chairman of St Anne’s School governors, Ken Martin, confirmed that Mrs Entwistle was no longer associated with the care club and left some time ago.
