A convicted paedophile was sentenced yesterday in Belfast Crown Court for downloading child porn from the Internet.
Carey Lyons (40) was jailed for six months followed by 12 months' probation, part of which must include an intensive course of treatment at a sex offenders' centre. He was also put on the RUC's sex offenders' register. The court heard that Lyons downloaded between 40,000 and 50,000 images of child abuse from the World Wide Web and shared his hobby with others, mainly in the US. He was traced through his computer "username".
While police sifted through the "entirely obscene" images Lyons was released on bail and unsuccessfully tried to kill himself by taking an overdose. Mr Patrick Lynch, QC, defending, said Lyons considered what he was doing as a "victimless crime".
Judge John Petrie said while Lyons deserved credit for his guilty pleas to the 12 charges of making and distributing indecent photographs of children, committed between January 1998 and June last year, he would be failing in his duty if he did not jail him.