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	Priest in Porn Case Walks Free ic Coventry [United Kingdom] March 26, 2007 http://iccoventry.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/0100localnews/tm_headline= priest-in-porn-case-walks-free&method=full&objectid=18809970&siteid=50003-name_page.html A Warwickshire priest who searched the internet for "homosexual fantasy stories about incest and child sex" has walked free from court. Father Anthony Jones used a computer at St Peter the Apostle Church, in Dormer Place, Leamington, to view an image of an older person having sex with a boy aged about 14. Jones was handed a conditional discharge at Warwick Crown Court yesterday after admitting three charges of making indecent images. A further 14 charges were ordered to lie on file. The 57-year-old was also ordered to register as a sex offender and pay £982 costs. The three admitted charges related to two "level one" pictures of naked boys, and one picture found on the Leamington machine of an older person having sex with a teenager of about 14. Prosecutor Tom Schofield told the court that in police interviews, Jones admitted finding the pictures while he was searching for homosexual fantasy stories about incest and child sex. Gerard Quirke, defending, said many of the images in the original charges had been within banner images over which the person accessing a site had no control. He said: "This man is a gay man. "He is prevented from expressing his homosexuality with another man so, because he is flesh and blood like the rest of us, in order to gratify himself he has gone on to the computer looking for adult homosexual images." He said when searching for gay pornography, there was a danger that an image would appear of someone aged under 18. And Mr Quirke said for three images, an offender would normally be cautioned. But he added: "It did not happen in this case. One does not know why, although one can guess. "If this man were not a Catholic priest, it would never have come out of the police station." Jones' crimes came to light when the Leamington church secretary discovered he had used the church computer to look for gay porn and "boys photos". She told the Archdiocese of Birmingham and, in December 2005, computers from Leamington, and Jones' previous church in Caversham, were examined by police. Judge Charles Harris QC said Jones had a church career of some distinction. He added: "People who download material of this kind provide a market for the products of highly exploitative people who prey on young children to produce material that some people like watching. "That a priest should utilise such material is particularly disagreeable, since your role in life should be to promote cleanliness of mind." And he said "bearing in mind the good you have done so far in your life and the degree to which you have fallen and the ruin of your career as a priest", he believed a conditional discharge was a suitable punishment. The court was told that Jones will always remain a priest, but has lost his right to minister and cannot perform mass or tend to parishioners.
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