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Catholic Priest Avoids Jail over Collection of 3,000 Child Sex Abuse Images

By Ben Mitchell
Manchester Evening News
February 5, 2016

http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/catholic-priest-avoids-jail-over-10850214

Priest Paul Clarke, 71 leaves Lewes Crown Court

A Catholic priest has avoided being sent to jail after pleading guilty to having more than 3,000 child porn images.

Paul Clarke, 71, now of Urmston, Manchester, but formerly of Watchbell Road, Rye, East Sussex, was sentenced to an eight-month prison sentence suspended for two years at Lewes Crown Court.

He had admitted one charge of possession of an indecent image of a child, another of possession of prohibited images, and three counts of making a total of 3,100 indecent images of children.

A Sussex Police spokesman said: "All the offences involved images taken from the internet. There is no evidence of contact offending and none of the images are of local children."

Police officers executed a search warrant at Clarke's Rye address, the residential presbytery attached to St Anthony's Church, on November 13 2014, and seized computers and related material.

The force spokesman said: "He will be a registered sex offender for 10 years and was given a Sexual Harm Prevention Order (SHPO) to last indefinitely, severely restricting his access to computers.

"The prosecution followed an intelligence-led investigation by the Paedophile Online Investigation Team of Sussex Police."

 

 

 

 

 




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