Paedophile Tony Collins the Liverpool Nonce was apprehended with over 15,000 obscene images of children asserted that he “was unaware it was unlawful.”
Tony Collins, 49, evaded incarceration during a search of his Liverpool residence in 2021, during which law enforcement discovered photographs of children as young as five and items of children’s pants.
Investigators, utilising intelligence, discovered a cache of photos on electronic devices, including a Samsung mobile phone, a hard drive, and a laptop.
Liverpool Crown Court heard yesterday how officers found ‘category A images’ – the most graphic – on the devices, including a photo of a 13-year-old girl.
Around 138 ‘category B’ pictures were also found on top of 15,248 ‘category C’ images of children aged between eight and nine.
Some of the photographs included a child estimated to be around five and seven, prosecutor Sarah Holt added.
The images were all downloaded across the space of four years from 2017 to 2021, some of which ended up in the recycling bin of the devices.
During a voluntary interview, Tony Collins said he has learning difficulties, struggles to read and write, and ‘didn’t realise it was illegal to look at those photos’.
He alleged he ‘didn’t look for images of children he wasn’t sexually attracted to’.
Tony Collins faced a maximum punishment of a decade in jail – but the judge spared Collins jail, given his lack of prior convictions and his ‘personal characteristics’.
‘It’s important to note viewing and downloading of images, you are perpetuating a wicked and repellent market for the exploitation of children, some are very young,’ Recorder Harris said.
‘The corrosive effects and psychological harm caused to children who are forced to pose for these photographs is incalculable.’
Tony Collins previously pleaded guilty to making indecent photographs and possessing indecent images and prohibited photographs of children.
‘Making’ indecent images of children, which can involve producing or distributing them, carries far more severe punishments than ‘possessing’ them.
Such charges are ‘serious enough to warrant punishment by immediate imprisonment’, Recorder said.
Though he was assessed as being a ‘medium risk of harm to children’, Recorder Harris said Collins had a ‘realistic chance of rehabilitation’.
Tony Collins was handed an ‘alternative’ punishment that includes three years of concurrent community orders and a rehabilitation requirement of 30 days.
He must show his probation officer he is taking the steps to prevent further offending by ‘educating’ himself and working with the police sexual offences unit.
Recorder Harris also ordered Tony Collins to be on the sex offenders register for five years and issued a sexual harm prevention order.
Tony Collins must also pay £70 costs within a year and a statutory surcharge.
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