Paedophile escapes jail term

Former supermarket worker Paul Mahoney, 43, was described by his own lawyer as an "isolated and lonely nobody", but behind closed doors at his home in Cadogan Avenue, Lindley, Huddersfield he downloaded and stored child porn and other images of youngsters.

Bradford Crown Court heard yesterday that even innocent films and television programmes could arouse Mahoney sexually.

Judge Jonathan Rose said Mahoney had admitted that he first became aware of his sexual attraction towards children after seeing one of the young actresses in the film Mrs Doubtfire and when he watched the hit programme Supernanny he fantasised about how he would deal with naughty children.

When police monitoring the internet tracked down Mahoney, they found more than 10,000 indecent images and films of children on his computer equipment. Judge Rose noted that the defendant also had more than 30,000 other non-nude pictures of youngsters. He said the storage devices were filled with what he called "a library of depravity".

The court heard that Mahoney accepted having fantasies about children he had seen locally although there was no evidence he had ever touched or attempted to approach any youngsters.

Mahoney admitted offences relating to downloading indecent images of children.

Judge Rose said: "It seems to me that whilst the public might be disappointed that you don't receive a long prison sentence I have a wider duty and that duty is to attempt to protect children from you."

The judge said Mahoney would be supervised for three years, be registered as a sex offender, have his internet access limited and attend a sex offender programme.