Child porn shame of video shop owner

Disgraced Steve Ayres, 54, admitted five counts of possessing and 13 counts of making indecent photos of children, Lewes Crown Court heard.

He asked for 4,864 other charges to be taken into consideration.

But he was given a nine-month sentence suspended for two years after Judge Charles Kemp heard how he suffered from poor health and that he took the lead role in running the family business of two video rental shops.

The massive explosion that turned Ayres' town centre shop into a fireball and put more than 20 lives at risk followed his arrest, it was revealed in court.

Striking firefighters broke their own picket line to help lead 28 elderly residents to safety in the early hours of January 22, 2003. The blaze destroyed the TVC video shop in Devonshire Road.

The court heard how Ayres, of Wilton Road, was arrested following a tip-off from American law enforcement agencies. Prosecutor Richard Cherrill said that when police searched his property, they found five indecent pictures of children in Ayres' loft.

Further images were found on his computer and as well as the 18 offences he was charged with, Ayres asked for 4864 similar charges to be taken into consideration. He said: "He had accessed computer pornography websites. In order to do that he had provided a number of very clear leads to him - his credit card, email address, his name and address.

"Indeed, it turned out he had accessed these sites in April or May of 1999 not attempting to disguise his identity.

"There were child abuse images on both (computer) drives, evidence of categorisation of images, evidence of the use of the internet to download both images and a number of other pornographic material relating to the rape of children."

Mr Cherrill added that Ayres, who has no previous convictions, had saved some of the images he had downloaded onto CDs. He said: "Some of the CDs had had the 'burn' date written on the back. It was quite clear that he had subscribed to child pornography sites and had backed up the images he had thereby obtained."

Jeffrey Lamb, defending, told the court that he took the lead role in running the two shops he owned jointly with his wife and parents and employed eight people.

He added that following an accident he suffers with considerable back trouble and was in "constant pain 24 hours a day."

He said: "Clearly and understandably this whole affair has affected his life deeply. By his guilty pleas he accepts, of course, his culpability.

"There have been threats made to him since his arrest. One of his shops was burnt down shortly after his arrest.

"As a result of these allegations, he has resigned from his position as vice president of the Bexhill Chamber of Commerce."

Mr Lamb added that the images found in Ayres' loft dated back to the 1960s or 1970s and that Ayres had found them there when he moved in 12 years ago.

Sentencing him to a total of nine months suspended for two years, Judge Charles Kemp said: "The offences you have pleaded guilty to are serious offences. You don't know and I don't know what untold damage is done to these children. So long as people like you are prepared to download such images you perpetuate that industry.

"You are now a disgraced man and I take that into consideration."