Yeovil man, 86, ‘one of the biggest active downloaders of child abuse material in UK’


An 86-year-old man from Yeovil who admitted downloading tens of thousands of pornographic images involving children and animals was identified by police as “one of the biggest active downloaders of child abuse material in the UK”.
Leonard Robinson had to be assisted in and out of the dock using a zimmer frame when he appeared before Somerset Magistrates’ Court.
Following intelligence passed onto the police, officers went to the defendant’s address and discovered the huge number of images and movie clips.
Robinson, of Pattinson Close, pleaded guilty that between January 1, 2016, and June 28, 2018, he made 8,362 indecent photographs of children in the most serious Category A
He also admitted making 11,079 indecent images of children in Category B and 32,152 indecent images in Category C.
He pleaded guilty to a fourth offence that between the same dates he made 38 extreme pornographic images which portrayed, in an explicit and realistic way, people performing sex acts with animals, and which were grossly offensive, disgusting or of an obscene character.
Prosecutor Suzie Butler said that police investigations revealed that on August 2 this year a computer using the defendant’s IP address was being used to download known child sex abuse images from movie clips.
“A warrant was issued and police found a hard drive and memory sticks at his address which were seized and analysed,” she said.
“Following this the images were discovered and Robinson was interviewed at Yeovil police station on September 5 and later charged with the offences.
“Due to the number of images found and the time scale of the offences the defendant was referred to at the time as one of the biggest active downloaders of child abuse material in the UK.”
Magistrates refused to accept the case saying they did not have adequate powers of sentencing to deal with the matter.
They adjourned the case until January 18 when the defendant must appear before a judge at Taunton to be sentenced.
In the meantime they ordered a pre-sentence report to be prepared by the Probation Service and Robinson was released on unconditional bail.
He was also ordered to sign onto the Sex Offender’s Register within three days of the court hearing and the length of his registration will be determined at his sentencing hearing.