Paedophile claimed he downloaded child abuse so he could be killed in prison


A St John Ambulance first aider has been spared jail after claiming he had videos of child abuse on his computer as part of a plan to be beaten to death in a case of suicide by prison inmate.
Darren Kelsey, 54, said that he had suffered suicidal thoughts but ‘lacked the courage’ to kill himself, so hoped he would be caught, sent to jail and be killed by fellow inmates.
Detectives found 1,500 pictures of boys as young as 10 that he had downloaded and shared with other paedophiles from his flat in Salford, Greater Manchester.
Along with the images, there were chat logs that included sexual messages and searches for ‘boy in Speedos’ and ‘young boys showing off’.
He denied having a sexual interest in young boys, but said that he had been sent the pictures and went onto the dark web to ‘see what else was out there’.
Kelsey’s lawyer, Alison Mather, told the court: ‘He explains that in the throes of his deteriorating mental health, he wanted to commit suicide but lacked the courage to go through with it himself.
‘So in a illogical manner he thought if he downloaded material of this nature from the internet he would be imprisoned and face those in the prison system who do not look favourably upon those who commit such acts and that harm would be done to him. He hoped that would result in his death. It is extreme and bizarre but that seems to be his way of thinking.’
Judge Timothy Smith, who heard Kelsey has since resigned from St John Ambulance, said: ‘You came up with an explanation to a psychiatrist and the probation service and your counsel as to how you came to be involved in this offending which is at the very least bizarre.
‘It is that although you were unable to take your life, you still wished to do so and thought being caught for this type of offending might lead to imprisonment and might lead you to those in prison causing you fatal harm to achieve the result you were unable to achieve yourself.
‘It is difficult for me to reach conclusions but I rather share the suspicions that the explanation you come up with is is more of an excuse to hide behind what it was you were in fact doing.’
Kelsey was given a 16-month prison sentence suspended for two years and will be on the sex offenders’ register for 10 years.