By Ben Kendall
Norwich Evening News
January 15, 2011
http://www.eveningnews24.co.uk/news/norwich_and_uea_catholic_priest_jailed_over_child_porn_charges_1_775431
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| John Shannon outside Durham Crown Court at an earlier hearing. Picture courtesy of the Northern Echo |
A former Norwich Catholic priest has been jailed after admitting downloading child pornography.
Father John Shannon, who served at Our Lady and St Walstan's Church in Costessey and a chaplain at the University of East Anglia before his arrest, blamed his celibacy for his compulsion to view the images of children as young as nine when he appeared at Durham Crown Court yesterday.
The 58-year-old downloaded 740 indecent photographs of children and was last night starting an eight-month jail sentence.
At the time of the offences the priest was a part-time lecturer at Ushaw College, the 200-year-old seminary at Esh, near Durham City.
Police were called in by the college authorities last June when they discovered that someone had made a considerable number of attempts to access restricted websites through the college's new computer system.
Prosecutor Jane Mitford said that after Shannon was identified officers went to his home and seized his computer. There were 521 pictures categorised as being of Level 1 seriousness (the lowest) 133 at Level 2 , eight at Level 3 , 75 at level 4 and three at Level 5, the strongest rating.
"The ages of the children in these images ranged between nine and 15 and in the main they were young boys," said Miss Mitford.
At his first interview he declined to comment. But the priest requested a second meeting with detectives at which he read a prepared statement that said it was "curiosity and lack of self-control that led him to access these websites".
Miss Mitford said Shannon admitted he received sexual gratification from viewing the pictures, which he would usually delete after using them, although some were kept as screensavers.
At a previous hearing Shannon, of The Elms, Chatteris, Cambridgeshire, admitted 16 counts of making indecent images of children and one charge of possessing indecent images of children.
Andrew Finlay, in mitigation, said Shannon had been a priest for 30 years and as a result was celibate.
"He has never had a chance to explore his sexuality. It has remained bottled up and boxed up and he thinks it may be to do with that unexplored sexuality," he said.
Mr Finlay said Shannon had sought counselling for his problem and was genuinely remorseful for what he had done.
Judge Christopher Prince placed Shannon on the sex offenders register for ten years and banned him from working with children for life.
Afterwards The Rt Rev Michael Evans, Bishop of East Anglia, said: "Any form of abuse of children, including that involved in the production of indecent images, is something we cannot tolerate as Christians.
"Children are always damaged in some way by such abuse. I apologise profoundly that a priest of this diocese has been involved in this way."
The Diocese of East Anglia said Shannon had served in parishes in Peterborough and Norfolk and had never been the subject of any complaint about inappropriate behaviour with children.
He voluntarily withdrew from all active ministry following his arrest in June last year.
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