Youth football team boss had 12,000 child porn images

Steven Norfolk, 58, resigned from his position at Otley Town’s youth football team after being arrested in September last year.

The businessman was given a suspended prison sentence after pleading guilty to 25 offences relating to possessing indecent images of children.

Leeds Crown Court heard police searched his home on Kings Close, Otley. Computers were seized from the property and taken away for forensic analysis.

More than 12,000 illegal images and movies of boys under the age of 13, some as young as six, were discovered.

A total of 384 images and 27 movies were at level four and 29 images at level five – the two most serious categories of offending. Officers also discovered Norfolk had written short stories on the images.

Norfolk, a married father-of-two, was interviewed and claimed he had accessed the Internet because he was interested in naturist sites featuring people aged over 18, but then became curious about images of children.

Gillian Batts, mitigating, said Norfolk was sorry for what he had done. She said: “The defendant has expressed a genuine desire to address his offending behaviour.” The barrister added that Norfolk, now of Sycamore Road, York, had built up a profitable business over 20 years.

Norfolk was given a 12-month prison sentence, suspended for two years.

He was also made the subject of a two-year supervision order, during which he must attend a sex offender treatment programme, and must go on the sex offender register for 10 years.

Recorder Paul Kirtley said: “The public would be best served by you being rid of the demons that led to this in the first place.”