INDECENT SHOTS WERE MONEY-MAKING PLAN

PHOTOS OF NAKED TEENAGER HAD UNDERWEAR SUPERIMPOSED ON THEM

Source : 11/05/2000 Northampton Chronicle and Echo

A Goods driver took indecent photographs of a naked teenager in his house and some woods near Colchester before superimposing underwear onto the pictures.

The man, from Daventry, admitted taking the pictures between November 4, 1998, and December 8, last year, but pleaded not guilty of the charge of taking indecent photographs of a child. The man claimed he was using them as the template for designing men's underwear, not for an indecent purpose.

But magistrates in Daventry took just 30 minutes to find him guilty.

The 35-year-old, who drives for Goodness Foods in Daventry, was yesterday sentenced to a two-year conditional discharge and ordered to pay £150 costs.

Nicola Smith, prosecuting, told the court the teenager's mother found seven pictures in December while looking in her child's room for a compact disc and took them to police and social services.

The pictures showed the 15-year-old either naked with computer graphics of underwear superimposed on top of the youth's body or of him actually wearing different pieces of underwear.

Miss Smith said: 'In these photos the child was naked and the clothes worn were by virtue of computer technology. The computer was examined further and images were retrieved from that.

'This get-rich scheme to design underwear had no research, samples, costings, fabrics or manufacturing technique. All the pictures taken were of an erotic and sexy nature.'

A statement was read out from Det Sgt Fellows, a computer expert for Northamptonshire Police, stated a further 20 pictures of the naked teenager were found on the man's computer hard drive.

Mary Abbott, defending, said the man had not taken the pictures for his sexual gratification but with a view to make money from designing underwear.

She said: All the photos had some kind of design on them and there were no poses.'

'The reason they were taken was he was short of money and thought he could make some money from design'

Magistrates made an order that the photographs should be destroyed.