11:08am Thursday 18th March 2010
TWO photo developers who hoarded indecent images of children have been spared jail.
Alan Herman, of Summerfield Street, Lee, and Thomas Befroy, of Beckenham Hill Road, Beckenham, were both sentenced to three-year supervision orders at Tower Bridge Magistrates’ Court.
Herman, aged 49, and 38-year-old Befroy were also ordered to take part in a sexual offences programme.
Both men pleaded guilty to possessing indecent pictures of children, with a view to distributing them or showing them to someone else.
Herman and Befroy were arrested on October 23 last year after telephone engineers found the photos in the Surrey Quays branch of Boots while carrying out repairs and upgrading systems at the store.
A stash of more than 1,000 photos was found, which had been collected over 12 years.
All of the photos were copies of customers’ photos and had been printed out in hard copy.
They included pictures of girls aged between 12 and 18 posing.
Some of the pictures were classed by police as Level 1 - depicting nudity or erotic posing but no sexual activity.
One photograph was classified as Level 2, which involves sexual activity between children.
At first the two men denied knowledge of the photos but finally admitted to making the copies.
They claimed they thought the children were 18 or above.
Detective Constable Darren Swaddling, from Walworth CID, said: “Once these crimes had been discovered they were dealt with swiftly and efficiently.
“I commend Boots for how they assisted police in this matter. Thankfully, we do not believe any of these photos were shared with anyone. They were just viewed and discussed between the two suspects whilst they were at work.”
He added: “We did not find any of the photos at the defendants’ homes and I want to reassure any public who may have had pictures developed at this branch that we do not believe the pictures ever left the premises.”
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