Man ‘obsessed’ with trawling internet sites for child porn jailed

Adam Haigh was found to have more than 29,000 pictures stored on his laptop, computer tower and hard drive when officers seized equipment at his home in Leeds in 2009.

He had also distributed over 1,500 of the images to five other users through an internet chatroom during a three-month period, Michael Greenhalgh, prosecuting, told Leeds Crown Court yesterday.

Ian Cook, representing Haigh, said he wanted to thank the officers who investigated him because he viewed his arrest with some degree of relief.

Mr Greenhalgh said: “He had become obsessed with these images. He knew he was doing wrong and but for the involvement of the police he would have continued to offend, he accepts that.

“In the months leading up to his arrest there were two sides to this defendant’s life – on one side he was a dedicated hard working family man and on the other, the sordid involvement and obsessive internet use which brought him into contact with these images.”

They were for Haigh’s own sexual gratification and he had little understanding of what lay behind them.

He deeply regretted the shame he had brought on his family, Mr Greenhalgh added.

Haigh, 43, a furniture maker of Stocks Approach, Seacroft, Leeds, admitted 24 charges of making or distributing indecent images.

Jailing him Judge Rodney Grant said children had been exploited in the images and it was an aggravating feature that Haigh distributed them.

Mr Greenhalgh told the court 29,838 images were found following examination of the computer equipment seized in May 2009 at Haigh’s home, of which more than 6,000 were at level four and five, the most serious.

After the case Det Con Claire Forder of West Yorkshire Police’s Abusive Image Unit said: “This conviction once again sends a message out to those individuals who seek to exploit children via the internet. This is not a victimless crime, children world wide are being sexually abused to feed the fantasies of people like Adam Haigh.

“In West Yorkshire we will continue to track down individuals who use the internet to offend against the most vulnerable.”