A 55-YEAR-OLD man who downloaded more than 2,000 indecent images of children – some as young as two years old – has been jailed for two years and two months.
The Royal Court heard that Matthew William Laverty had downloaded the pictures of children between March 2014 and November 2023.
Another 151 had belonged to Category B and 1,596 were in Category C – giving a total of 2,011. Some 400 of them had been moving images.
Crown Advocate Lauren Hallam, prosecuting, said 264 of the images belonged to Category A, those of the most severe nature.
They featured mostly girls and some boys aged under 16. Advocate Hallam said the youngest children were two years old.
She said police arrived at his home on 8 November 2023 and he was immediately co-operative, telling them: “I’ll make it easy for you. I’ll show you were it is.”
They seized 56 electronic devices and found the images on 13 of them.
Laverty had pleaded guilty on his first appearance in the Magistrate’s Court on 12 December last year.
He had no previous convictions and a pre-sentence report deemed him at low risk of reoffending.
But the Crown Advocate pointed out that downloading the images increased the demand for them, leading to more children being harmed.
Advocate Mark Boothman, defending, argued for a shorter jail sentence than the 3½ years the Crown had argued for.
He said Laverty was a loner who had lived with his parents until their deaths. He added: “He doesn’t have a close network of friends.
He has never had a romantic relationship. He has undergone extensive treatment for cancer.
“He is deeply remorseful about his actions. He had considered taking his own life as a result of his behaviour.”
But he added that Laverty had engaged well with the work programmes and other schemes in prison and said: “He is looking to put right his offending behaviour. A sentence of around two years would be appropriate.”
Bailiff Sir Timothy Le Cocq said decisions on extra measures, such as restraining orders or being added to the sex offenders register, would be made at a later date.
He was sitting with Jurats Christensen and Berry.
