Trans woman uses public WiFi to download child porn from hospital bed, cops find 80k teen abuse pics in laptop
A trans woman who had amassed around 80,000 images of child sexual abuse over a period of 14 years has been jailed for 9 months. The authorities are trying to figure out whether to send her to a male or female prison. The pedophile 54-year-old Julie Marshall was busted for viewing the sickening images from her hospital bed. Marshall used public WiFi to access the images while recovering from a heart attack in 2017, Preston Crown Court was told. The police later raided Marshall's home in Blackpool, Lancashire, and recovered two laptops, a phone, and many CDs.
She had no prior convictions and had admitted to downloading the images from the internet between 2004 and 2018. She pleaded guilty to three counts of making indecent images of children in February. The images included 677 category A images which are on the serious side of the scale, 465 category B images, as well as 79,958 category C images.
Judge Simon Newell revealed that he had been unable to suspend her sentence, Daily Mail reports. "I have to protect the public, I have to protect children and I have to deter others from this type of offending," Newell said. "The images are vast in number. The crown assert that the aggravating features are the period of time over which downloading took place — 14 years — and the amount of images and to some extent the ages of the children involved, though again it appears the bulk of interest seems to be in girls aged 15 or teenage girls," Newell shared.
"The mental health issues have been of a long-standing nature. I do not go into the detail of them but they have run from adolescence to adult life. It appears to me the period of time and the volume of images can only be met by an immediate custodial sentence," Newell continued. Marshall has been jailed for nine months for the Category A images, six months for the Category B images, and four months for the Category C images. All three sentences will run simultaneously. In addition to this, Marshall was given a 10-year notification order to sign the sex offenders register as well as a six-year sexual harm prevention order.
"We have made what arrangements we can with regard to where Miss Marshall will go for now. The authorities are aware of the situation and protective measures will take place in the short term," Newell revealed. "In the long term, allocation is a matter for the Home Office and the Prison Service," he added.
The Gazette reports that prosecutor Beth Philling said, "Officers attended her property with a warrant in April 2018. Upon their arrival, they asked her whether she had any images. She immediately told officers she did on a laptop and was visibly shaken and upset. She was arrested just prior to attempting to self-harm." According to Sharon Watson who was defending, Marshall had many complex features and had been trying hard to get in contact with professional agencies to get help for her mental health issues.