A PENSIONER will be prevented from continuing his sexual interest in children more quickly if he keeps his freedom, York’s district judge has said.

Police found five indecent images of children on the laptop of James Middleton, 76, said Kathryn Walters, prosecuting. He had never been in trouble with the law before.

Defence solicitor Hayley Carr said since his arrest Middleton had paid hundreds of pounds for a rehabilitation course by Safer Lives after North Yorkshire Police gave him the organisation’s contact details. It works with sex offenders to rehabilitate them. He had also contacted other similar organisations.

District judge Adrian Lower said any prison sentence would be short and little or nothing would be done in jail to stop Middleton reoffending because of current prison conditions.

“I have come to the conclusion after some anxious thought and following (national) sentencing guidelines a community sentence can be justified,” he said.

Rehabilitation “would be achieved far quicker in my judgment than any custodial sentence could,” he said.

“I am quite sure you are absolutely disgusted with yourself and what you have done.”

He passed a two-year community order including 40 days’ rehabilitative activities and a £200 fine and put Middleton on the sex offenders’ register for five years, ensuring that police will know where he lives and can keep an eye on him.

He ordered him to pay a £114 statutory surcharge and £85 prosecution costs. The laptop was confiscated.

Middleton, of Sandway Close, Thorpe Willoughby, pleaded guilty to three charges of having indecent images of children.

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Ms Walters said the five images found on Middleton’s laptop when police raided his home in September 2022 were three of the worst category and one each of the middle and least serious categories.

Police also found search terms showing Middleton had looked for such images.

The judge said they indicated Middleton had a sexual interest in children.

Middleton’s case was a familiar one of someone using the internet to look at adult pornography, said the judge, and then going down the rabbit hole of looking at indecent images of children believing it was harmless because they were pictures and not understanding that real children had to be abused in reality to produce the pictures.

The children were then further abused every time someone looked at the images of their sexual abuse, he said.