Paedophile jailed for having half a million indecent images of children

A paedophile has been jailed after being found with half a million indecent images of children.

Gerrard Charnley, 52, downloaded manuals on how to abuse children and kept a diary detailing his fantasies.

The judge at Liverpool Crown Court said the material was "truly shocking".

Charnley, from Widnes, was sentenced to 14 months in prison on 2 January 2025.

Judge Andrew Menary, KC, the Recorder of Liverpool said that he may have only been “playing out” his fantasies in writing his diary but “nevertheless it demonstrated the depraved perverted nature of your desires and reasons for accessing this material.

“It may be you have obsessive compulsive traits and maybe you are someone who likes to create collections of things even as horrifying as this.”He told Charnley that collecting the material had not been “an idle decision but one where you are fixated on abusing children.”

He pleaded guilty to seven offences involving possessing and downloading child abuse images, possessing a paedophile manual, prohibited images and extreme pornographic images.

Forensic experts analysed the images after his arrest on 24 February 2024 and categorised 205,452 of them, including 17,000 in the most serious category of seriousness.But the judge pointed out that a further 232,000 images were not categorised because of the sheer quantity involved.“It is safe to say your collection of images was enormous by any standards even by the standards this court sees where there are large numbers involved.”Judge Menary said, “This court sees, sadly, many cases of this type but your case compared to others is one where the nature of the material recovered and the content of the images depicted is truly shocking.”He said that Charnley had not worked for some years and did not enjoy good health. “I suspect you were living a fairly solitary existence at your home” and become “obsessed” with the material.The judge said he accepted that the defendant had admitted his guilt and had contacted the Stop It Now organisation for help after his arrest and on many subsequent occasions.

Charnley pleaded guilty to seven offences involving possessing and downloading child abuse images, possessing a paedophile manual, prohibited images and extreme pornographic images.Judge Menary said that even if his descriptions of what he would like to do to children was fantasy there was “a real risk” if he had unsupervised contact with youngsters.

He ordered Charnley to sign on the Sex Offenders Register for ten years and imposed a Sexual Harm Prevention Order, which includes a ban on unsupervised contact with children, for the same length of time.Myles Wilson, defending, said that because of the volume of images Charnley would have had trouble looking at them all but had obviously looked at some.“There were perhaps not enough hours in the day to look at them all.“It became almost an obsessive compulsion to seek out this material.”Mr Wilson said that the defendant had been open with the police and probation “that he finds children attractive. He had been relieved when arrested as he realised this chapter of his life was coming to an end.”He added that there were no contact offences and nothing to suggest that his diary was anything more than fantasy.He said that Charnley had lived in his flat for 20 years and helps care for his elderly father who has mobility issues.

He has been in touch with the Stop It Now organisation 27 times and there was a realistic prospect of rehabilitation.

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