NEWS

Landmark banning order for paedophile

Christopher Dunkley, who has been jailed and banned from using internet chatrooms

22 July 2004 06:30

A convicted paedophile was jailed for 2½ years yesterday and given a landmark banning order preventing him from using internet chatrooms for 10 years.

Christopher Dunkley, 36, is believed to be the first person in the country to be given the ban after admitting that he used the computer sites to share his sexual fantasies about young boys with other men.

He also pleaded guilty to distributing and creating child pornography - with some of the images featuring children as young as 18 months.

Norwich Crown Court heard that when police raided Dunkley's home they discovered 5000 pornographic images of boys, which he had downloaded from the internet, along with three CD-Roms containing more than 300 films featuring child pornography.

Originally there were 85,000 images of child pornography on the computer but these had been deleted shortly before the address in Garrett Court, Norwich, had been searched. However, the court heard that detectives were still able to trace them on the system.

Dunkley, who now lives at Havelock Road, Yarmouth, was given a sexual offences prevention order, which bans him from chatrooms for 10 years, under a section of the Sex Offenders Act which came into power in May.

He was also placed on the sex-offender register indefinitely and was told that he would be put on extended licence for four years after his prison term to prevent further offending.

Christopher Morgan, prosecuting, said that Dunkley had installed a web-cam on his computer so that he could have visual contact with other chatroom users.

"He had been using the chatrooms to talk to others, sharing his sexual views. He had been showing pornographic images of young boys being sexually abused at various levels. He was living out his fantasies and getting his sexual thrills from the internet."

Dunkley admitted six offences of distributing indecent photographs of young boys and 19 charges of making indecent images of boys, between January 2000 and June 5 last year.

Judge Simon Barham said he was satisfied that the banning order preventing Dunkley from accessing internet chatrooms was necessary to "protect the public".

Isobel Asoherson, defending Dunkley, said he was willing to go on a sex-offender treatment programme and there had been no suggestion he had contacted children, only adult males.

A Crown Prosecution Service spokesman said it was believed to be the first case of its kind, where a judge had banned someone from accessing internet chatrooms using the legislation.

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