Meehan guilty of child porn possession
- 00:01:09
- ITN
Meehan guilty of child porn possession
Craig Meehan, the former partner of Shannon Matthews's mother, has been freed from custody despite being jailed for possessing child pornography. The 22-year-old was sentenced to 20 weeks but was released because he has already spent 166 days in jail on remand. He was driven from Dewsbury Magistrates' Court, in West Yorkshire, to an undisclosed location with a police escort. Meehan was found guilty of having 136 indecent images of children on his computer and another of a topless 15-year-old girl on his mobile phone. The images were found after police seized his computer during the search for nine-year-old Shannon in February. He was convicted on the 11 charges by District Judge Jonathan Bennett after a five-day trial. Judge Bennett heard how the computer was in the front room of the house the supermarket fishmonger shared with Shannon's mother, Karen Matthews, in Moorside Road, Dewsbury Moor, West Yorkshire. Indecent images of children aged between four and 16 were found on one of two computers and the pictures were graded at levels one to four, on a scale where one is the least serious and five the most. Meehan was found guilty of possessing 31 images at level one, ten images at level two, two images at level three and six images at level four. Prosecutors said they could show Meehan was never at work when the downloads took place but David Orbaum, defending, said it was impossible to prove his client was responsible for the images. Police experts told the court the computer contained 653 references to "Lolita" - a term commonly used by people interested in searching for child pornography. Officers searching for Shannon took the second-hand computer from the house the day after the young girl went missing. The trial heard that Meehan blamed other people who had used his password-protected computer. But the court was told it was "extremely unlikely" that anyone other than the defendant was responsible, as all the images were downloaded when Meehan was not at work. Summing up the evidence, Judge Bennett said it was clear Meehan had an interest in child pornography. The judge said the defendant had lied since his arrest and those lies "tarnish his credibility considerably". He said: "I am driven to the inevitable conclusion that the defendant lied in interview to the police and continued this in the account given to me." Judge Bennett discounted the defence case that other individuals could have been responsible for downloading the images and said the evidence pointed "overwhelmingly" to the defendant. He said: "I thus find that the defendant has some attraction to child pornography and was both the owner and principle user of this computer. "Other occasional users predominantly did so when others were in the living room of this open house and the screen was in full view of anyone present." Judge Bennett said: "Finally, the defendant was not at work when these images, the subject of the charges, were viewed. "He had both the motive and opportunity. I am of the view that he has viewed indecent images on the computer." Meehan was made subject to a seven-year sexual offences prevention order which bans him from having photographs of children under 16 unless it is with permission of the child's parents. He is also prohibited from downloading or viewing any image of children, except for family photos. Access to websites relating to children was also barred under the order.
ITN | September 16, 2008
