Teacher’s trawl for child images

A TEACHER accused of sexually touching young boys at school, spent hours trawling the internet looking for pictures of youngsters, a court has been told.

Around 1,000 images of boys aged up to early teens were found on two computers seized from 25-year old Neil Carr’s home after he was arrested by police.

The images which included a short video clip showing two boys wearing only shorts, romping together, were found when a forensic expert analysed the hard drives of the machines.

Daniel Porter, an expert employed by the High Tech Crime Unit of GMP, said he had been able to track internet websites viewed by Mr Carr.

He had also been able to view a history of search terms he had used — including “naked boys”, “nude toddler” and others — to bring up the sort of pictures he was interested in.

The vast majority of images he accessed, were obtained via Flicker.com, a perfectly legitimate photo sharing site.

Mr Porter said the pictures had been accessed over a period of eight or nine months, usually at weekends, or during school holiday times.

Analysis of the computers showed that the images were viewed on 17 separate dates between April and December.

Under cross examination by Marsha Myers defending, Mr Porter was asked: “There was nothing indecent in your opinion, on these computers at all?” He replied: “No.”

She suggested: “In a sense it was a completely negative result for you?” He replied: “Yes, I was looking for indecent pictures.”

He agreed that there was no evidence to show Mr Carr had saved any of the pictures, and he accepted that had he wanted to see more graphic sexual pictures, there were “a million” sites he could have accessed. Mr Porter accepted too, that no prosecution would have resulted from his having viewed the images alone.

Mr Carr pleads not guilty to 20 separate offences of sexual activity with a child, after complaints from seven young boys.

Mr Carr who has yet to give evidence, has maintained his innocence throughout, insisting the boys have made up stories.

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