Child porn man jailed

Philip Fernandez, 29, from Harrow in north-west London, was arrested after police officers raided his home, seizing computer equipment, videos and children's underwear from his bedroom.

Included in his cache of child pornography were almost 1,500 indecent images of children stored on his computer, three CD-Roms containing 7,200 indecent images of children and 128 indecent images of children printed on A4 paper.

Fernandez pleaded guilty at Harrow Magistrates' Court and was sentenced to 12 months on each of the 10 charges of making indecent images of children to be served concurrently.

He will also be placed on the sex offenders' register and has been disqualified from working with children for life.

Outside court, Detective Inspector Brian Ward, head of the Met's Obscene Publications and Internet Unit, said he was very pleased a custodial sentence had been imposed.

He said: "During this investigation we found thousands of indecent images of children, some as young as six months, many featuring actual sexual abuse by adults.

"This type of crime feeds off the exploitation and harm of one of the most vulnerable groups in society - children - and is unacceptable.

"People still seem to believe that committing this type of crime on the Internet means they are anonymous. This isn't the case. Police can and will trace you."