Danbury man with extreme animal pornography escapes jail

A disabled man who had extreme animal pornography that showed women having sex with animals has escaped jail.

Herbert Mead, 61, of Little Baddow Road, Danbury, downloaded seven movies and 54 still images of adult women engaging in bestiality.

Mead was found to have the stash of porn on two CDs and a hard drive in April 2013.

At Chelmsford Crown Court he denied all the charges and a jury found him not guilty of possessing indecent images of a child under 13, but found guilty of having the extreme animal porn.

Defending barrister, Christopher Kerr, said: "This was a very isolated incident involving two sessions of downloading over three to four days. These images are of adult females engaging in oral and vaginal intercourse with animals.

"The images were cached, so they were not stored to be used for future viewing.

"It occurred during a bout of depression and there's no evidence he was browsing for such material before that occasion or subsequently.

"This is a man who is no threat to the public and has spent most of his life as a law abiding citizen."

Sentencing Mead on Friday, Judge Patricia Lynch QC, said: "This is the lower level of offending, but when someone downloads this material the demand for such filth is greater.

"Given his degree of denial I will not be ordering a counselling session as that would be wasting their valuable time."

Mead, who walked with a crutch into the dock, was sentenced to two months for both charges, to run concurrently, suspended for six months.

He was also made to pay £1,500 court costs at a rate of £25 a month and the destruction of both the CDs and laptop used to download the pornography was ordered.