Febuary 2008

Brothers had bestiality and child porn images

TWIN brothers who shared child pornography and a “revolting” interest in bestiality walked free from court yesterday after a judge ruled they needed help, not prison.

Allan Crisp was given a suspended jail sentence and David Crisp a community punishment, while both were ordered to go on an internet sex offenders’ group work programme.

The judge, Recorder Howard Crowson, told the 52-year-olds, from Middlesbrough, that their interest in pornographic images of youngsters helped encourage child abuse.

Mr Recorder Crowson was told that short jail sentences would leave them coming out with nowhere to live and without expert help to address their problems.

Teesside Crown Court heard that police raided David Crisp’s home in Phillips Avenue, Middlesbrough, in February 2006, and found thousands of pornographic pictures, as well as videos.

Harry Hadfield, prosecuting, said that more than 14,000 of the photographs involved animals, while images of children were also found on the bachelor’s computer and on discs.

The following day, police searched his brother’s home in Wheatley Close and found a computer in his garage that also contained pictures of children.

Mr Hadfield said police carried out an “immense” investigation that involved watching 1,000 videos and examining the computers at a cost of £13,000.

David Crisp admitted having an interest in looking at teenage girls and told police he got kicks out of filming youngsters in the street. The court heard that father-of-two Allan Crisp, who works in the computer industry, was left by his wife of 23 years after his arrest.

His barrister, Dan Cordey, said: “He has already lost a lot, and to send him to custody would effectively mean he will lose absolutely everything.”

Richard Bennett, for David Crisp, described his client as a “fairly inadequate man”.

He was given a 24-month community order after he admitted 15 counts of making indecent images of children, possessing a pseudo image of a child and possessing a quantity of indecent images of children.

Allan Crisp was given a 12-month jail sentence, suspended for two years, with 24 months of probation supervision, after he admitted 16 counts of making indecent images, five of making indecent pseudo photographs, one of distributing the pseudo photograph and one of possessing 20 indecent pictures of children.

The brothers, now of Phillips Avenue, were also banned from working with children and were ordered to sign on the sex offenders’ register – Allan Crisp for seven years and David Crisp for five.