The defendant appealed against his conviction for possession of indecent images with a view to them being distributed or shown to others.
Held: The offence required an intention on the part of the defendant to distribute the images. They had been downloaded as part of a file-sharing system, which would leave the files in a position to be downloaded in turn from his computer. He had normally removed files from this section of his computer, but when arrested six images remained in tha public diirectory. The defendant could only commit the offence if one reason for leaving the file in the shared folder was that it would be distributed. That had not been shown in this case, and the appeal succeeded.
Judges:
Hooper LJ
Citations:
Times 10-Nov-2005
Statutes:
Protection of Children Act 1978 1(1)(c)
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Criminal Sentencing
Updated: 30 April 2022; Ref: scu.235769
