Jail term for indecent child images guilty

Court told 'Jekyll and Hyde' character had amassed 900,000 images

A Douglas man has been sentenced to two years in prison for possessing more than 900,000 indecent images of children.

Martin Cleator, aged 45 from Ballaquark, was sentenced at Douglas courthouse today (15 May) for 11 offences of possessing images and one of distributing them.

Cleator had previously admitted the offences, which dated back to 2013, when he began downloading images.

The court was told 3,000 of them were rated at level 5, the highest band on the COPINE scale which measures severity of child sex abuse images.

A psychiatric report said Cleator had been diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), which partly explained the vastness of his collection. 

Questions over whether Cleator understood the 'victimisation' caused by child pornography were raised in a separate social inquiry report. It said he was at low risk of re-offending, and had made progress coming to terms with his crimes while in custody.  

The former IT professional was described by Deemster Montgomerie as a 'Jekyll and Hyde character', outwardly leading a respectable life as a family man, but with a hidden 'dark personality'. 

Cleator was sentenced to two years custody for possessing the images and three months for distribution, the sentences to run concurrently.

He will remain on the sex offenders register for seven years and must inform the authorities when purchasing a device with internet access, making it available for inspection on demand.