Jeremy Thomas Bourke also downloaded ‘disturbing’ manuals detailing how to sexually abuse young children – material that the Crown had never before encountered, the Royal Court heard yesterday.
More than 45,000 indecent images as well as guides explaining how to make pornographic videos of children and how to groom young people were found on repeat-offender Bourke’s electronic devices.
Bourke – who was jailed in 2012 for three years after almost 15,000 indecent images and movies were found on his computer – used ‘sophisticated’ measures to try to conceal his offending from the police by downloading an app that enables access to the dark web and which does not retain internet history.
Yesterday, the States police said that following his release from jail after his 2012 conviction, Bourke was managed by the offender management unit within the force and it was due to officers conducting a random check that his crime was uncovered.
The 42-year-old, who admitted four counts of making indecent photographs of children and two counts of breaching a restraining order, was on Monday jailed by the Superior Number, which only convenes for the most serious of cases, for seven years and placed on the Sex Offenders Register for 15 years. He was also made subject to a string of restrictions which included barring him from communicating with girls under the age of 16 and ordering him to log with the police any device that could access the internet.
Crown Advocate Matthew Maletroit said a total of 45,707 photographs and 80 movies were found on Bourke’s devices. Of those, 1,159 were classed as being at a level four and 103 were level five – the most serious categories.
‘This is one of the most serious cases [of indecent images] to come before the court,’ Advocate Maletroit said, adding that the ‘exceptionally’ high number of images was one of the ‘largest to have been found by the States of Jersey police’.
The court heard that Bourke had also downloaded three guides on ‘how to have sex with very young girls’ which included images to illustrate the physical acts discussed.
‘These are detailed and graphic manuals which “teach you how to have sex with little girls… safely”,’ Advocate Maletroit said. ‘The techniques referred are said to be “tried and true”, the author focusing on his own experiences with children.
‘The focus is on girls aged between three and six years.’
Advocate Natalie Addis, defending, said that her client’s early guilty pleas should be taken into account and added that he was willing to undergo an intensive treatment course to address his addiction.
‘There’s an acceptance of wrongdoing and a recognition that he has a problem which needs to be addressed urgently,’ she said.
Commissioner Julian Clyde-Smith, presiding, said Bourke was a ‘sophisticated’ computer user who had amassed a ‘significant collection’ of indecent images of children.
‘We note that the Crown has not come across disturbing material [the manuals] of this kind before,’ he added.
Jurats Geoffrey Grime, Jerry Ramsden, Rozanne Thomas, Jane Ronge and Pamela Pitman were sitting.
