‘Frail’ pervert superimposed photo of child he knew onto an illegal sexual image
A 75-year-old man caught with more than 12,500 pictures of child abuse said he acted out of “curiosity”.
William Place had 12,598 indecent images of children on his laptop which police seized from his home on Severn Road, Redcar.
He also had 18 computer-generated or cartoon images of children depicting sexual acts including rape.
The vast majority of the illegal collection were pictures of strangers downloaded from the internet.
Most disturbingly, however, he had superimposed a picture of the face of a child he knew on to one explicit sexual image, Teesside Crown Court was told on Wednesday.

Prosecutor Rachel Masters said Place’s laptop was examined after his home was searched by officers on September 6 last year.

The pictures included 370 stills and videos in the most serious category in law, some depicting rape of girls as young as nine.

In police interview, Place confessed he downloaded the images out of curiosity, “having looked at pornographic images of adults for a number of years”.
Place admitted three charges of making indecent photographs and one of possessing prohibited images of children – his first conviction.

Place was jailed for 10 months.

Place was given a sexual harm prevention order restricting his contact with girls under 16 and use of the internet and devices, and will be on the sex offenders’ register, each for 10 years.