Formby shopkeeper found guilty of downloading child sex abuse images

Formby shopkeeper Malcolm Jackson, was today found guilty of downloading child sex abuse images.

Malcolm Jackson, 60 owner of Formby Hardware Store leaving Liverpool Crown Court.

Formby Hardware owner Malcolm Jackson, 60, initially admitted the offences to police but then decided to face a trial because it would be 'Foolish' to deny he was responsible.

But the Formby Hardware owner later pleaded not guilty and decided to face a trial atLiverpool Crown Court.

He told a jury it was “not in his nature” to look at child sex abuse images and claimed that someone else must have used his laptop.

However, a jury found him guilty of 10 counts of downloading indecent photographs of children.

Jackson displayed no emotion in the dock as the guilty verdicts were returned.

Police raided his raided his home in Edenhurst Drive, Formby just before 7am on March 14, 2013. Officers took away a Dell and a Fujitsu laptop from the main bedroom and Jackson was interviewed the next day.

He explained how he had found his new life difficult after moving from South Africa to Merseyside and admitted viewing porn.

Jackson, who owns the shop in Three Tuns Lane, said this led to some issues with his wife and had made him depressed, but insisted he had only ever been looking for adult porn.

He admitted searching for “pre-teens” and accepted any images on the computer would be down to him. But, in a second interview that day Jackson retracted his admission about searching for pictures of children.

The defendant was interviewed 14 months later, when he again accepted he was responsible for the pictures, and said he had been “in an exceptionally dark place”.

He told an officer: “I have tried to put these horrible images that I saw and what I did behind me and move on. I got caught up in a shocking world, I really did.

“I would be foolish to deny it, absolutely foolish, whether I recall it, whether I want to recall it. That period of time was so dark for me. Many times I felt like I wanted to walk into the ocean.”

Last week Jackson told the jury he had been led to believe he was at fault by the police officers interviewing him.

Jackson was asked why he told police he had been glad when they knocked on his door.

He said: “I realised that what I was doing was wrong, that I was stealing time from my family and I was watching porn by myself.

“It was absolutely awful what I did - a father that’s been pulled up watching pornographic material.”

Jackson told the court other people would have had access to the laptop which the images were found on and tried to blame of raft of different men during the trial.

Judge Steven Everett said he would be sentenced on September 8.

He remanded Jackson on bail.

Story and Photo source: Liverpool Echo