Bollington paedophile jailed

A Bollington man who created a ‘step-by-step paedophile manual’ has been jailed for 16 months.

Nicholas Simon Smith’s 171-page document was called How to Practise Child Love – A Paedo’s Guide which he wrote was a ‘guide in how to engage in safe and harmless love with a child’. 

Smith blamed ‘family and work’ pressures for his paedophile behaviour as he was jailed for 16 months.

The father-of-one’s house in Bollington was raided in February 2017 where police retrieved his computer and USB sticks on which investigators found more than 10,000 indecent images along with video clips showing child abuse.

Judge David Hale, who viewed some of the document, described it as ‘absolutely repulsive’ at Chester Crown Court. Among the 10,837 images, 133 were classified as ‘category A’ – involving the worst kinds of child abuse images. Prosecutor Jayne Morris said the images had been collected over a period of more than 10 years. Smith, 41, started in his mid to late 20s but then the offending became more frequent and compulsive over the years. He told police that he started looking for material of girls aged 10 or 11 because of ‘family and work pressures’.

He admitted seven counts of possession of indecent images of children, possession of the manual, possession of indecent computer generated images depicting children and possession of extreme pornography. Defending, Mark Connor said that the manual had been downloaded by Smith along ‘with a lot of other stuff’ and there was never any suggestion that there had been any contact offences. He said: “His arrest has had a devastating effect on his family, he has lost a lot.” He added that he had shown ‘shame and remorse’ about his actions. His client had sought out treatment for his addiction to such material and was receiving weekly sessions of therapy.

Jailing Smith, Judge Hale said that the possession of the manual, the number of images and the length of time of the offending left him with no other option than immediate custody. Smith was also made the subject of a 10 year sexual harm prevention order.