More than 130 child porn pics on Meehan's computer

Sep 9 2008 by Neil Atkinson, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

POLICE searching for schoolgirl Shannon Matthews found more than 100 indecent images of children on a computer belonging to her mother’s then partner, a court was told.

Detectives seized Craig Meehan’s computer from the home he shared with Karen Matthews on Moorside Road, Dewsbury Moor, the day after Shannon went missing in February, a district judge was told.

The nine-year-old was found 24 days after she vanished.

Prosecutor David Holderness outlined the case against Meehan at his trial at Dewsbury Magistrates’ Court.

Mr Holderness said Meehan faced charges which referred to 134 indecent images of children.

He said 133 were found on a second-hand computer Meehan had bought in 2006 and the other was on Meehan’s mobile phone.

Mr Holderness said 16 of the images had been classified as level four in a scale which runs from one to five and in which five is the most serious.

Most of the images were classified as level one with others at level two and three.

Mr Holderness said Meehan had pointed the finger at other people who had used his password-protected computer.

The prosecutor added: “There are substantial amounts of material which, when put together, provide a convincing and overwhelming picture that it was Mr Meehan who was the person who downloaded the relevant materials.”