A PROFESSIONAL photographer who took indecent photographs of two young girls and downloaded hundreds of others from the internet has avoided a jail sentence after spending five nights behind bars.
Ian Napier, 54, of Lister Street, Moldgreen, pleaded guilty at Bradford Crown Court last Friday to 12 charges of taking indecent photographs and nine of making indecent images.
Judge Linda Sutcliffe had warned Napier that he faced a prison term for the offences, but after remanding him in custody while she considered his case further she finally decided to pass community sentences.
Napier's barrister Michelle Colborne told Judge Sutcliffe yesterday that her client had never felt so wretched as he had while in custody.
Judge Sutcliffe made Napier the subject of a three-year community rehabilitation order with the maximum 100 hours community service work. He will also have to pay costs totalling £962 and register as sex offender with the police for the next five years.
Prosecutor Fiona Dix-Dyer told the court last week that the mother of the older girl, who was aged 11 at the time, reported Napier to the police.
He told officers that he had paid the older girl £10 for each sitting and he regarded it as a form of art.
He denied being a paedophile and insisted he had downloaded images for artistic purposes.
Computer experts were able to establish that he had visited several child pornography websites, downloading more than 600 images involving girls aged between 10 and 14.
He had also taken 147 photographs of the 11-year-old and 121 of the younger girl, said Miss Dix-Dyer.
Miss Colborne, mitigating, said Napier had been happily married for 33 years and there was no suggestion of any sexual deviancy in his life. At the point of taking the pictures of the younger girl he felt "disgusted with himself" and had deleted them.
"He accepts that what he did is abhorrent and he is truly remorseful," Miss Colborne added.
