An IT consultant caught with pictures of children
An IT consultant caught with pictures of children as young as four being raped wept as he was jailed for six months today (FRI).
Matthew Collins, 27, was snared downloading child porn from an internet chat room called ’12-year-old sex’.
Police found 28 obscene images including six video clips on Collins’ computer at the home he shared with his glamour model girlfriend Faith Alexandra.
The pair were running a live webcam of Ms Alexandra on the internet and had jointly downloaded 80,000 (corr) adult porn images.
But Collins’ fiancee was unaware he was also searching for pictures of young girls and boys having sex with men.
Collins broke down in tears and held his head in his hands as he was sentenced by Judge Colin Smith QC.
The judge told him: ‘The fact is this society has an abhorrence of child sexual abuse and child pornography and it is a horrific offence.
‘I regard it as the court’s duty to mark the offence and to bring to the attention of those who commit this kind of offence they must be punished and others must be deterred.
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Tom Wilkins, prosecuting, said Collins was first traced by anti-paedophile police in Manchester.
Officers monitoring paedophile internet sites tracked someone using the name ‘RR’ entering the ’12-year-old sex’ chatroom from an address in Wales.
‘RR entered the chat room and accessed the file servers offering to supply child abuse images,’ Mr Wilkins said.
Police went to the address of (27) Talbot Road, Ammanford, on April 24, but found Collins had moved.
A raid on Collins’ home at (807) Wandsworth Road, Wandsworth, south London found three computers.
Mr Wilkins said that on some of the computers were ‘images of live webcasts of Collins’ girlfriend who is a glamour model and had her own web site.
‘He had been involved in a joint venture in relation to that with his girlfriend.
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But Ms Alexandra’s laptop had no child abuse images on it.
Interviewed by police, Collins admitted using the name ‘RR’ but initially denied being in the child porn chat room.
Later he claimed he found the movies downloaded on his computer and ‘intended to delete them later’.
Many of the pictures showed pre-teen girls and boys engaged in sexual acts with adults.
One had the title ‘incest dad and daughter’.
Another featured 13 thumbnail images of children from the age of four upwards being raped by adult men.
Defending Collins, barrister Alasdair Williamson said: ‘He and his fiancee shared an interest in pornography.
‘My understanding is there were 80,000 images.
Therefore these 28 form a tiny proportion of that.
‘It may be that its is a lesson about the corrosive nature of pornography that his legal interest effectively led to some amounts of child pornography.
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Mr Williamson said his client never distributed the material and asked for Collins to be released in time for the birth of his baby in October this year.
Uncle-in-law Arthur Alan Roberts, a former acting assistant chief constable from Pembrokeshire, told the court he had never known his nephew ‘to show an obsessive interest in children’.
Mr Roberts said: ‘He’s been so ashamed of his conduct.
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The rest of his family, who live in a tight-knit community in Wales, had also been shamed by his conduct, the court heard.
Collins, originally from Carmarthenshire, Wales, attended Amman Valley Comprehensive School, in Margaret Street, as did his girlfriend who was then known as Amanda Elias.
On his entry on Friends Reunited he said he studied a diploma in engineering at Gorseinon college.
He then went on to study Architectural Engineering at Cardiff University, but dropped out after a year and a half.
He returned to University in Swansea to study a HND in Computing before getting a 2:1 BSc (Hons) degree in Software Engineering.
Collins writes on the site: ‘During these courses I and two classmates set up a limited IT Consultancy company based in Swansea.
Our clients included British Steel.
‘We split the company up in 2000 after 2 years of successful trading to streamline the operation into web development and Hardware.
Both are still going strong.
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Collins, of (807) Wandsworth Road, southwest London had admitted six charges of making an indecent photograph of a child, and one of possessing an indecent photograph of a child on February 1 last year.
ends
