Indecent child images: Barry man given community order
A BARRY man was this week given a three-year community order and ordered to attend an internet sexual offender treatment programme, after pleading guilty to making indecent images of children.
Cardiff Crown Court heard yesterday that Paul Christoforato, aged 53, had 14 indecent images of children on his computer.
One of them was classed as Level Five (the highest level) and two of them were Level Four. There were also six images at Level One, three images of Level Two and two images at Level Three.
Judge Rhys Rowlands warned Christoforato that he would have had a custodial sentence, if there had been a greater number of Level Five images.
The court heard that on November 19 last year, police searched his address in Claude Road and a number of items were seized, including the defendant’s computer and hard disk. Both of these were examined.
Prosecuting, David Webster said: “Following the examination of the hard disk, the defendant was interviewed at the police station on December 17.
“He admitted that he had seen the images. He also admitted that he had moved his cursor over the images of the children to enlarge them, but he attributed his actions to boredom rather than any paedophile intentions.”
Defending, Andrew Davies said: “This is a man who is truly remorseful for his actions.
“He is also remorseful for the shame he has brought on his family.”
Mr Davies added: “He’s a 53-year-old man with no previous convictions. He is hard working and has been providing for his family for many years.”
Judge Rhys Rowlands said: “This is very far from being victimless. If it wasn’t for you being willing to access these images, then these children would not have been forced to conduct in this filming.”
Christoforato was also ordered to pay prosecution costs of £500 and warned that if he breaches his community order, or fails to participate in or attend the sexual offender treatment programme, then he would face a custodial sentence.
