A paedophile has said he has no sympathy for victims shown in pictures and videos of child abuse because ‘they looked like they were enjoying it’, a court heard.

Dennis Williams, 54, from Stockton, was caught with a total of 48 indecent images and films on his laptop and a USB stick after police raided his home in May.

He confessed immediately and pleaded guilty to three charges of making indecent images and children and possessing 16 images of extreme pornography at an earlier hearing

But Williams’s confession to a probation officer was described as ‘worrying’ by a judge at Teeside Crown Court, after saying that he thought his victims were ‘enjoying it’.

The court heard how police raided his then home in Tennyson Road, Billingham, when Williams and his wife were there, and seized his computer equipment.

Rachel Masters, prosecuting, said 48 images and films were found – with 25 in the most serious category.

Judge Simon Bourne-Arton, QC, told him: ‘For you to tell a probation officer that you fail to empathise and sympathise with these victims because they, quote, look as though they are enjoying it, close quote, is a very worrying belief for you to have and a very worrying thought for me to consider.’

His lawyer, Damian Sabino, said: ‘He states the more material he viewed, the less sensitive he became. He says, with hindsight, he is appalled and he is sorry for his family to have to deal with this.

‘There is clearly a lack of understanding as to the terrible impact upon the victims, and clearly his view has become distorted.’

Williams, who now lives in Thornaby, was handed a ten-month suspended prison sentence, placed on the sex offenders’s register for ten years and given 30 days of rehabilitation activity requirement with a treatment programme.

METRO.CO.UK

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