Evidence collected while investigating a pedophile were so horrific that officers had to seek counseling
The evidence that police collected while investigating Russell Jameson were so horrific that investigating officers had to undergo counselling to overcome what they had witnessed.
Seventy-year-old Jameson from Dunmow, Essex was sentenced to five years in prison for possession of videos and images related to the torture of babies and children as young as 18 months old, that he had got from the dark web.
Even before Jameson's sentencing began on July 19, a warning was given to the members of the public about the horrific nature of the case. Judge Patricia Lynch QC said: "Members of the public may well come into court but they may well wish they had not."
As reported by Metro, the details of the charges were read out in the court. Prosecuting, Mark Halsey revealed how the officers who were investigating the case could not believe the horrific images they saw. "This was the worst collection they have seen," he said. "Two officers have received counseling as a result of the material they have looked at." As per the report, Russell had gathered 1,802 Category A indecent images of children, the most serious category of offending, including videos. It is believed that the youngest is between 18 months and two-years-old.
His collection dates back to 2013 and also consisted of cartoon or CGI images of sexual abuse of children and adults, as well as a vast amount of pseudo-images with faces of people familiar to Russell edited into them. Russell also shared videos and images online on the dark web. "‘In the chat forums, he took part in fantasy role play with others," Mark noted. "He talks about torturing young girls."
After the police got a warrant for his house on August 25 of last year, they found 3,000 chats of him on the dark web. In one of the conversations that Russell has with another person on the dark web, he describes a girl aged between seven and ten by saying, "This girl has the perfect body for me. "I would love to torture her for a couple of days and then kill her." However, defending Russell, Gavin Purves stated that the defendant was unaware of the criminal nature of viewing extreme images of children.
He stated that his client was "deeply ashamed" by his actions. "That shame is genuine. There is no defense or explanation. No getting away from the fact that the vast majority of the images are absolutely abhorrent," he noted. "These were images that he found really quite readily." Gavin further tried to justify his actions by suggesting that Jameson did not think his actions were wrong because the pictures and videos are readily available for anyone who wants it.
"Because he persuaded himself that they were there for anyone to find, he considered he was not doing anybody any harm because the images were already out there for people to view whether he looked at it or not," he further added. Gavin also noted that his client thought at the time that his behavior was "naughty rather than seriously criminal". Jameson has since pleaded guilty to these crimes.
The court also heard his side of the story where he was projected as a good man with no previous convictions. Judge Lynch condemned Jameson’s actions before sentencing him. "What makes these offenses so serious is that the children, the real live children that are being filmed do not live in a fantasy world," she said. "They endure the pain and the suffering and the disgust and the abhorrence. Children and babies who cannot defend themselves. For them, when the filmer says “cut” and stops filming, they do not turn to each other and say, “That was a good day, wasn’t it?"
She continued, "It is not fantasy, it is real life. The reason you are a danger to children is that every time depraved fantasists and pedophiles like yourself switch on your computer, you increase demand and where there is demand, it is answered. You should be deeply ashamed because but for people like yourself, there would be no call for this. Helpless children would not be filmed doing the most dreadful things. You should take your shame for facilitating this dreadful crime to your grave."