A Burnham-On-Sea man who admitted downloading more than 1,300 indecent images of children has this week been given a six-month suspended sentence.
Francis Hutchinson, 51, said it was right he had been caught and added that being arrested felt like “a weight lifted off his shoulders”.
At a hearing in Taunton Crown Court, Paul Light, representing Hutchinson, said his client had offered no excuses and that his remorse and own experience of abuse meant he should not be jailed.
During the case, Hutchinson pleaded guilty to downloading five indecent movie files featuring a child and 1,303 indecent still images, 35 of which were judged to be second most serious type of images.
All the crimes happened over a four year period from January 2005 to August 2009. He was arrested after an online bulletin board hosted in North America identified him.
