A man who told police he fantasised about young girls and had 54 indecent photographs of children has been jailed for six months.

Chelmsford Magistrates' Court heard yesterday how Simon Edwards 43, of Sceptre Close, Tollesbury, possessed a picture of a child having sex with a man.

Edwards admitted at an earlier hearing 16 charges of possessing indecent photos of children on March 26 this year. One of the charges covered 39 images of children aged between five and 16.

The court heard police acted on information Edwards had accessed US website Landslide, at the centre of international child pornography investigation Operation Ore.

Fiona Hardman, prosecuting, said police searched his home on March 26.

An examination of a computer and floppy disks revealed they contained 54 indecent images of children. All but one were in the least serious category of level one. One was at the most serious, level four.

She said Edwards had 17 previous convictions for obscene phone calls.

Philip Witherspoon, mitigating, said Edwards acknowledged the images were "abhorrent".

Edwards downloaded the images after a drunken night out in 1999 and he had not looked at them for more than three years, he said.

Magistrates sentenced Edwards to six months for the level four offence, and four months for each of the other offences, to run concurrently.

Edwards will be on the sex offenders' register for seven years

Published Tuesday November 25, 2003

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