July 2020

Man caught with 10,000 images of child abuse told wife ‘I did a bad thing’ as police raided house

A man collected more than 10,000 images of child abuse for sexual kicks, a court has heard.

When police raided Kevin Arthur Williams’ house looking for his electronic devices the defendant apologised to his wife, adding: “I did a bad thing”.

The 50-year-old would later say he was relieved officers had come knocking on his door as his consumption of child abuse images was “out of control”.

Swansea Crown Court heard Williams’ interest in such images came to light in September last year when police raided his house in Pellau Road in Margam.

Ieuan Rees, prosecuting, said Williams’ wife and son were present during the raid and the defendant was heard by officers to apologise to his partner, tell her he had used his computer to access stuff he should not have, and that he had done a “bad thing”.

Police seized a number of electronic devices then Williams handed over a USB memory stick which had been in his wallet, telling officers they would have found it when they searched him and adding: “There’s stuff on there too.”

The court heard that when the devices were examined police found more than 10,000 indecent images including 1,928 of Category A, the most extreme kind, which had been downloaded over the course of some 15 months. Some of the children being abused in the images were as young as six

The court heard officers found another 30,000 pictures had been deleted from the devices, suggesting Williams had been accessing and storing such material for a considerable length of time.

The defendant subsequently gave a “no comment” interview to police. Williams, now of Cowbridge Road, Bridgend, admitted three counts of possessing incident images. The court heard he has no previous convictions.

Giving the defendant a one-third credit for his guilty pleas she sentenced him to 16 months prison suspended for 18 months and ordered him to complete a rehabilitation course and 100 hours of unpaid work.

Williams was made the subject of a 10-year sexual harm prevention order to control his access to the internet and will be a registered sex offender for the same length of time