Woman jailed after police seize 80,000 child sexual abuse images

Marshall, left, was sentenced at Preston Crown Court, right. (Lancashire Police/PA Images)
Marshall, left, was sentenced at Preston Crown Court, right. (Lancashire Police/PA Images)

A paedophile who built a collection of 80,000 child sexual abuse images has been jailed for nine months.

Julie Marshall, 54, was caught after she accessed the images from her hospital bed while using public wifi in August 2017, Preston Crown Court heard.

The Blackpool resident had been recovering from a heart attack. Police raided her home, seizing two laptops, a phone and CDs, the court was told.

She possessed 677 Category A images, the most serious, 465 Category B images and 79,958 Category C images, and had built up the library over 14 years.

In February, Marshall pleaded guilty to three counts of making indecent images of children by downloading them from the internet between June 2004 and April 2018.

Sharon Watson, in mitigation, told the court Marshall pleaded guilty as soon as she could.

Judge Simon Newell, sentencing, said: “The images are vast in number.

“The crown assert that the aggravating features are the period of time over which downloading took place – 14 years – and the amount of images and to some extent the ages of the children involved, though again it appears the bulk of interest seems to be in girls aged 15 or teenage girls.

“The mental health issues have been of a long-standing nature. I do not go into the detail of them but they have run from adolescence to adult life.

“It appears to me the period of time and the volume of images can only be met by an immediate custodial sentence.”

He sentenced Marshall to nine months in prison for the Category A images. She was also given six months for the Category B images and four months for the Category C images, which will run concurrently with the nine-month sentence.

Marshall was also given a 10-year notification order to sign the sex offenders’ register and a six-year sexual harm prevention order.