A court pondered the existence of the ‘porn fairy’, as jurors decided the case of a man on whose digital devices police found indecent images of children.

Convicted changing room voyeur Steven Bradley, 47, denied downloading or looking at the child sex abuse material, which was found on a mobile phone, his wife’s iPad and on a desktop computer hard drive.

The files on the latter were in an ‘inaccessible’ format, indicating they had been deleted.

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Distilling the prosecutor’s cross-examination of Bradley as he summarised the evidence to the jury on Thursday (July 6), Judge Michael Gledhill KC feigned bewildered disdain.

He said there was ‘not a little porn fairy’ placing such material on innocent people’s computers – in reference to the fictitious character credited in a pre-digital age with distributing pornographic magazines in woods.

Prosecutor Brian Reece did not, in fact, cite the filth-spreading fairy when he quizzed the defendant in front of the jury.

But his tone was no less dismissive, as he asked Bradley: “So, somebody’s interfered with all three of your internet capable devices if you’re right. Who would do that to you? Or Why?”

“I don’t know,” the defendant replied.

“I have no idea how the images got onto any of the devices.”

He accepted that his wife would not have accessed or saved the material.

He also accepted looking at legitimate pornography online, and said it was ‘possible’ he had searched for terms found in the internet search history like ‘young teen models’.

Oxford Mail: Steven Bradley outside Oxford Crown Court Picture: Oxford Mail

But he denied having any sexual attraction to images of children, had not looked at such images and had not downloaded the illegal material.

Jurors took 50 minutes to return unanimous guilty verdicts to three counts of making indecent images of children.

He had one in the worst category – A – a single image in category B and 231 in category C, with the files created between 2016 and 2017 and then between 2020 and 2021.

Following the verdicts, the jury learned that Bradley also had to be sentenced for a count of voyeurism relating to him setting up a covert camera at a workplace changing room.

His brief, Tamasin Graham, asked the judge to adjourn sentencing for the probation service to prepare a report recommending alternatives to an immediate prison sentence.

A psychiatric report prepared earlier in the court proceedings suggested Bradley was suffering from an ‘adjustment disorder’ at around the time he committed the offences in late 2020 and early 2021.

Judge Gledhill said it was with ‘some reluctance’ he would ask the probation service to compile a pre-sentence report.

“This man ought to have pleaded guilty. In my view the evidence was overwhelming,” the judge told jurors.

“I did my best yesterday to have defence counsel give him robust advice, which I am sure Ms Graham did.

“Ms Graham said he’s determined to have his day in court; and he’s had it.”

Bradley, of Haydon Road, Didcot, was bailed to return to the crown court for sentencing on August 4.