- 2 adults and children as young as six years old. Those materials were
contained in CD-ROM form.
3.
The appellant possessed, apparently, sophisticated computer
equipment and he admits he intended to swap this material with other
like-minded people over the internet.
4.
He had once sold the same material over the internet through
an accessible website, but that had been some years before, and the learned
magistrate sentenced the appellant on the basis that his intended
publication of the material was not for profit.
A starting point of 30 months’ imprisonment was reduced, on
5.
the basis of the appellant’s plea of guilty, to a sentence of 20 months’
imprisonment.
6.
7.
The appellant appeals, on two basis, that :
(1)
The sentence imposed was too severe.
(2)
The magistrate did not give any credit in mitigation to the
appellant’s family difficulties. Those difficulties being that
his father has diabetes and has on at least one occasion fainted
and that his mother has had a cancer removed from her throat
in 1999 and has to undergo six monthly-examinations in this
regard.
That information was not put before the learned magistrate at
the time of sentencing although, as these events predated the offence, it
was apparently available.