Man jailed over bestiality images

A 55-year old man who was found guilty of making indecent images of children and possessing images of extreme pornography has been handed a 15-month prison sentence.
 

William John Bate, from Belfast's Albertbridge Road, continues to deny the offences against him, despite being convicted by a jury following a trial held in the city's Crown Court earlier this year.

He will spend seven-and-a-half months in custody with the remainder of the sentence spent on supervised licence.

During the trial, the jury heard that a total of 269 images of children were found on his laptop, 50 of which were in the two most serious categories.

Also found on his computer were images of extreme pornography, including 412 images of bestiality.

The offences came to light when police searched his east Belfast home.

He tried to shift the blame of the presence of the images onto a number of other people, including his elderly mother and a 12-year old child.

Bate's barrister Mark Farrell spoke of the "limited timeframe" of offending, saying the images were transmitted to Bate's laptop over a period from 19 July to 23 July, 2009.

Mr Farrell said his client was "an isolated man without meaningful employment or a meaningful relationship in life."

Sentencing Bate on Tuesday, Judge Corinne Philpott QC told him that he had "failed to accept any form of responsibility", even blaming a child for potentially putting the images in his computer.

She said: "Mr Bate, your conduct has been disgraceful.

"You tried every legal loophole you could take and you argued every technical point that you could argue. You blamed everybody possible for this behaviour, including the people who set the computer up for you."

Before he was led to the cells, the Judge placed Bate on the Sex Offenders Register for ten years and told him "you have shown absolutely no remorse at any stage." UTV