Dove Holes man had images of sex with animals

Philip Slater admitted two charges at Derby Crown Court on Friday relating to the possession of 411 images of a graphic, offensive and obscene character, dating back to June 2012.

The 44-year-old also pleaded guilty to making an indecent photograph of a child.

The court heard that police searched the defendant’s address at Beaumont Drive in January 2013 in relation to another investigation, which has since been dropped.

When Slater’s laptop was examined officers found 328 images of men and women having intercourse with animals and 83 of people having oral sex with an animal in a file on his hard drive entitled Phil.

Prosecutor Andrew Vout said the vast majority of the photos and footage involved horses and dogs, but there were also examples involving a cow, a dead chicken, a donkey, a goat, a gorilla, a pig, a snake and a tiger.

At interview, the defendant said he was unaware that the images were illegal and that normal pornography “bored him”.

Slater added he had no interest in possessing images of children, and must have downloaded the single photo “in error”.

Mr Vout continued: “He said that he had a very stressful job and found it hard to get motivated. Looking at extreme pornography motivated him.”

Sonal Ahya, defending, said her client, a professional man with a wife and children, had learnt a “heavy lesson” as the incident had provoked a “huge amount of shame”.

She added that he had had to live with the impact of his actions for a year and a half since his arrest.

Judge Jonathan Gosling said Slater “just about accepted his guilt” according to a pre-sentence report prepared by probation.

He conceded that the defendant’s interest was “plainly not in children” but in “some quite revolting material which right-minded people are at a loss to understand”.

Addressing Slater, the judge said: “The victims of your obsessions are the adults who are plainly visible in these images. They are often vulnerable adults. The reasons these images arise is that a few people, like you, have this obsession.”

Slater was sentenced to a 12-month community order consisting of 200 hours of unpaid work and a supervision requirement and was made subject to a five-year sexual offences prevention order.