A convicted sex offender photoshopped himself onto some of the almost 100,000 child sex abuse images he had collected

Antony James, 59, later told police he had ‘never harmed or intended to harm a child’. He made the claim when he was quizzed by detectives after his personal and work computers and phones were seized by the police.

It was James’ wife who first raised the alarm. She found the sick images on his phone and thought her husband’s device had been hacked.

Sentencing the dad-of-one at Oxford Crown Court on Thursday morning, Recorder Paul Reid said: “The illegal images were subsequently recovered from your devices despite the attempts you’d made to delete them.

“They reveal images of young girls in class A – 4,700 of them – and these are appalling images of abuse and every time somebody looks at one of these images of a child it is a further abuse of the child.”

He described as 'particularly disturbing' the fact James had Photoshopped himself onto some of the images in his collection.

Prosecutor Honor Fitzgerald told the court that the police had found thousands of indecent images of children on his personal computer.

The visit to his home last September followed his wife finding some of the images on his phone. James tried to delete the material the night before he was arrested, although it was later recovered.

They included some 4.700 in the worst category and more than 83,000 in the lowest category – C – while there were more than 2,700 ‘prohibited’ images, which are typically illustrations or cartoons.

A police digital forensics officer said the indecent material was ‘stored systematically’, which pointed to a ‘high level of personal interest’.

Software had been installed on his computer designed to hide his activities online. The night before he was arrested, there were signs he had deleted ‘incriminating evidence’. The material had been recovered by police specialists.

He was interviewed by the police and, in a prepared statement, James emphasised that he had never taken any indecent images of children known to him. He added: “I’ve never harmed or intended to harm a child.”

Appearing before the Oxford magistrates in October, James, of Rectory Meadow, Chinnor, pleaded guilty to possession of indecent and prohibited images of children. He had one previous conviction, now 22 years old, for looking at indecent images.

In mitigation, James was said to know he ‘has a problem and he knows he needs professional help to beat it’. He had sought professional help, with weekly sessions and ‘homework’.

The delay in waiting for the matter to come to court was described as ‘tortuous’.

James’ advocate asked the judge to impose a community penalty, saying that defendants who had shown their commitment to reducing their risk through a programme of rehabilitation could ‘give confidence’ to the court.

The judge imposed a three year community order with up to 30 rehabilitation activity requirement days and 120 hours of unpaid work. He must pay £425 in prosecution costs and abide by a five year sexual harm prevention order.

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This story was written by Tom Seaward. He joined the team in 2021 as Oxfordshire's court and crime reporter.  

To get in touch with him email: Tom.Seaward@newsquest.co.uk

Follow him on Twitter: @t_seaward