A South Belfast man has been jailed for eight months after admitting owning over 8,000 images of children being abused.
William Fisher (22) from Tate’s Avenue off the lower Lisburn Road was handed the sentence at Belfast Crown Court on Friday (January 13) after pleading guilty to two charges of possessing extreme pornographic material and 30 charges of possessing indecent images of children on October 13 last year.
Fisher was also forced to sign the sex offenders’ register for five years, as well as being banned from owning or having access to a computer without being monitored, and barred from having unsupervised contact with or working with children. The court heard he had downloaded the images between June 2008 and April 2010, which were discovered when two computers were seized from his Tate’s Avenue home on May 27, 2010.
The court was told police officers found 8,052 photographs, which ranged from category one to the worst type, category five, 18 of which were bestiality pictures. A total of 339 video files were also found, again ranging from category one to category five, with 21 bestiality videos among them.
In his previous court appearance in October, Fisher admitted downloading the files through a file-sharing website at first before seeking out websites specifically dedicated to posting files relating to the sexual abuse of children.
Passing sentence, Judge Patrick Lynch told Fisher he was “aiding and abetting the assistance” of the child pornography industry.
