In 2018, the Offender Database reported that Matthew Wilman, then 41, of The Leys, Cradley, Herefordshire, was sentenced at Hereford Crown Court.
Matthew Wilman was handed a three-year community order after pleading guilty to one count of possessing an extreme pornographic image involving a horse and three counts of distributing indecent photos of children. The court heard that Matthew Wilman came to the attention of the police after he showed a folder of child abuse images to a relationship counsellor during an appointment in Wolverhampton.
The prosecution detailed how Matthew Wilman told the counsellor, Dawn Wilson, that he had difficulty forming relationships with women and expressed extremist views regarding paedophilia. Matthew Wilman argued that society was “wrong” to imprison paedophiles and that such attraction should be accepted as a “sexual preference,” claiming that the folder of illicit material he possessed was part of a two-year “project.”
During the court proceedings, it was revealed that Matthew Wilman had previously been ejected from a support group in Worcester because other members became aggressive toward his views. When arrested at his home on March 25, 2017, police recovered the folder containing both extreme pornography and indecent images of children, which Matthew Wilman disturbingly described as “quite normal.”
Judge Daniel Pearce-Higgins QC noted that while the “distribution” was unusual—occurring during a plea for help rather than via the internet—it remained a serious criminal act. In addition to the community order and 40 days of rehabilitation, Matthew Wilman was ordered to register as a sex offender for seven years. He was placed under a ten-year Sexual Harm Prevention Order, which strictly limits his access to the internet.
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