Swansea Man Avoids Jail for 4,000 Child Abuse Images

A Swansea man who downloaded nearly 4,000 computer-generated images of child sexual abuse whilst on licence from prison has been given a suspended sentence. 😟

Daryl Lawton, 30, of King’s Road in SA1 docklands, was caught with the illegal material just months after being released from a 20-month jail term for similar offences.

Swansea Crown Court heard that monitoring software on Lawton’s laptop alerted police to “concerning” imagery in June last year. When officers arrived at his home, the defendant was “shaking and upset” and at one stage produced a Stanley knife before being persuaded to put it down.

Examination of the laptop revealed 3,937 “pseudo-images” including computer-generated content showing boys as young as five being sexually abused. Police also found disturbing internet searches with phrases including “no to age of consent” and “children want sex”.

Judge Paul Thomas KC described Lawton as having “deep-seated paedophilic traits” and called some of his search history “sinister”. However, the judge said that imposing immediate custody would mean the defendant serving only “a handful of months” – leading him to choose a different approach “not without misgivings”.

The court heard this was Lawton’s third conviction for similar offences. In 2022, the then-PhD student received a community order after police found over 3,000 illegal images at his home, plus evidence of one million additional images that weren’t fully examined.

Defence barrister Angus McWilliams noted that whilst the images were “heinous”, they were computer-generated rather than of real children. He said his client was voluntarily seeking help for his issues.

Lawton was sentenced to eight months imprisonment suspended for two years and ordered to complete a rehabilitation course. Judge Thomas warned him that accessing even “a single indecent image” in future would result in him going to prison “for a very long time”. 📱