A CONVICTED paedophile – described in court as ‘untreatable’ – has been jailed for 9½ years for possessing and distributing images of child abuse, just months after being released from prison for similar offences.
Karn Damien Laffoley (47), who has 31 previous convictions relating to indecent images of children and eight convictions for breaches of orders designed to prevent him from offending, was found in possession of more than 4,300 indecent images of children while also being in breach of two restraining orders.
Laffoley was released from prison last September after being sentenced in 2017 for possessing, making, distributing and advertising indecent images of children, and four of breaching a pre-existing restraining order for related sexual offences.
A total of 4,356 images were found in December 2021, and February 2022 – a time when Laffoley was on police bail.
It was also discovered that 54 of the images had been distributed to three individuals via WhatsApp.
Crown advocate Lauren Hallam, prosecuting, described the defendant as ‘untreatable’ and said that his only mitigation was his early guilty pleas, before suggesting an eight-year sentence.
Advocate Giles Emmanuel, defending, asked the court to impose a lesser custodial sentence, arguing that Laffoley accepted full responsibility for his offending, entered early guilty pleas, had a good employment record, a difficult upbringing and was making attempts to deal with his addiction to child-abuse images.
He told the court that Laffoley was seeking medication to lower his libido.
Delivering the court’s sentence, the Bailiff Sir Timothy Le Cocq, presiding, said that Laffoley was to be jailed for a total of six years for the nine counts of making indecent images of children and four counts of distributing indecent images, as well as 3½ years for the breaches of the restraining order. He was also placed on the Sex Offenders Register for a minimum of 20 years.
Jurats Jerry Ramsden, Pamela Pitman, Robert Christensen, Kim Averty and David Le Heuzé were sitting.
The Court also imposed a 20-year restraining order on Laffoley and ordered that he could only apply to be removed from the Sex Offenders’ Register after the same period of time.
