Judge hits out at Shropshire 'mob culture' after man who admitted sex offences has home attacked

Judge James Tindal said it was up to the courts to punish and made a plea for vigilante attacks to stop.

It comes after a number of attacks on the home of man who admitted downloading indecent images of children.

Judge Tindal said he understood the "revulsion" towards such offences – but that was no excuse for people to take matters into their own hands.

He warned members of the "mob" that they would find themselves in the dock facing "significant punishment".

He spoke after the solicitor of Leroi Bailey said there had been a number of attacks at his client's home in Cordwell Park, Wem, after the 51-year-old admitted a raft of offences last month.

Mr Andrew Holland said it had happened after media reports of Bailey admitting charges of making indecent photographs of children, possessing prohibited images of children and possessing extreme pornographic images.

The solicitor said: "The matters have been reported to the police, but it has been a very difficult time for my client and his partner."

Judge Tindal said the offences "clearly passed the custody threshold" but spared Bailey a jail term. He instead opted to impose a three-year community order which would include a sex offender rehabilitation programme.

Bailey was also placed on the sex offenders' register for five years and banned from working with children.

"The public has an understandable revulsion of this type of offence," Judge Tindal said.

"But if people take matters into their own hands, they will appear before the courts and can expect significant punishment themselves.

"We do not live in a mob culture, we live in a society where the courts are there to deal with it.

"However upset people are, they must not take matters into their own hands."

Explaining his decision not to impose a jail term, the judge said he felt a short term of imprisonment as suggested by legal guidelines and a lack of supervision on release would not be the best way forward to "protect the public".

He said: "He (Bailey) needs to be challenged, to find out the reasons why he committed these offences. It is the best way of preventing Mr Bailey from doing this again, and also ensuring he does not progress from having a sexual interest in children to actual sexual abuse of children."

The court heard that officers seized two computers and a number of hard drives from the home of Bailey for investigation – and found more than 100 images at the most serious Category A.

He had admitted charges of making indecent photographs of children, possessing prohibited images of children and possessing extreme pornographic images depicting bestiality at a previous court hearing.

Mr Neil Ahuja, prosecuting, said: "Matters came to light following a warrant executed at the defendant's home on August 11 last year.

"Various items of computer and digital equipment were recovered.

"All equipment was examined and various items of indecent images of children, prohibited images of them and extreme pornographic images involving dogs and horses were found."

Mr Ahuja said the girls on the images were as young as six and that Bailey had initially denied the offences after his arrest.

"He said he had not downloaded any indecent images of children and had not viewed any," the prosecutor said. "He said he had the hard drives since 1995/96 from various places including skips and charity shops.

"He said if there were any images on the hard drive he was not responsible for them. He also suggested some of the computers had been hacked.

"In the second interview, when more conclusive evidence was presented to him, Bailey suggested he was heavily addicted to morphine and alcohol, and that he may have downloaded the images while under the influence and unaware of what he was doing. He said he had no sexual interest in children."

Mr Holland said the offences were out of character. He handed a number of references in to the court and said it had come as a great surprise to people who "spoke highly" of him in the local community.

Sentencing him, Judge Tindal said to the outside world Bailey seemed to be a "normal family man".

But he added: "But there is a different side to the character, a side, in your case I suspect, where drink and drugs disinhibited you.

"Every time someone like you looks at images like these, it increases the demand for them, making it more likely that children will be sexually abused. It's a foul trade and you dipped your toe into it.

"This sort of offence really does place you in the last chance saloon. If there is any further offending or breaches of the order, you will be back before the courts and you will be going to prison, no ifs or buts, for a very long time."