A paedophile former Labour councillor who worked in a children’s home has walked free despite being caught with over one million child porn images, including of 12-year-old girls being raped.
Roger Spackman, 50, who was a Labour councillor on Exeter City Council until his arrest in 2017, worked at a secure children’s home at the time he started collecting the enormous hoard of images.
Exeter Crown Court heard that he was part of an underground internet network called ‘The Other Place’.
A police investigation in 2017 charged the two front runners with offences and other members were exposed.
But Judge Peter Johnson jailed Spackman for ten months, suspended for two years, with 40 days rehab for possessing a ‘huge number of images’.
Judge Johnson said it was ‘an astonishing number’ of images which included the most serious category A images and others of category B and C.
The court heard the most graphic images showed young girls aged 12 being raped.
Defending this, Spackman’s barrister Barry White claimed: “He likes to pretend he is a young girl who will be abused. He will pretend to be a young girl.”
Mr White stressed: “None of the images are of people who he knows. He has never sexually assaulted any children nor would he do so.
“The images were sent to him by the other party in the fantasy which were indicative of what that person liked. He did not get to choose what images but he accepted them all.”
Spackman admitted between October 2007 and July 2017 possessing still and moving images of categories A, B and C as well as possessing a prohibited image and possessing 48 extreme pornographic images involving an animal.
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Editor-in-Chief | Carl D. Pearson has been involved in British politics and media from an early age, with the key knowledge of what it takes to run a news organisation for the 21st century. Mr Pearson, as Editor-in-chief, is responsible for supervising the daily tasks of publishing media and content to UNN’s website and various platforms.
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