A father had a so-called “paedophile manual” which contained a detailed step-by-step guide on how to find, groom, and have sex with children from the age of two, a court has heard. One of the tips in the 170-page book for men who want access to children is to target single mothers who “lack self-confidence” and would welcome a new relationship.
Swansea Crown Court heard Jason Church was also found to have downloaded more than 39,000 pictures and videos of children and babies as young as two months old being sexually abused. Sending the 40-year-old to prison a judge said he was of the view that the defendant posed “a risk and a danger to children”.
Ashanti-Jade Walton, prosecuting, told the court that at at 7.15am on August 23, 2023, police officers and forensic investigators executed a search warrant at the defendant’s family home in Milford Haven in Pembrokeshire in response to intelligence which showed that indecent images had been downloaded by a device linked to the property. She said the officers explained the purpose of their visit to Church and he told them the material they were looking for was on his device. An initial examination of a Samsung phone showed the presence of indecent images and the defendant was arrested and taken into custody. The court heard that a welfare check was then carried out on the defendant’s wife as she was noted to be “in shock” at what had happened.
The prosecutor said a detailed examination of the seized phone and its SD memory card revealed more than 39,000 pictures and film clips of children being sexually abused including 2,688 Category A images showing the most serious kinds of abuse. The court heard some of the images showed the attempted rape of a baby girl aged between two and four months. Read about an ex-teacher and youth club chairman who has spent a lifetime preying on and sexually abusing children.
Miss Walton said investigators also uncovered a 170-page book stored on the phone called How to Practice Child Love which gave detailed step-by-step advice and instructions on how adults can find, groom, and have sex with children from the age of two years upwards. The court heard how the book said “there were no good arguments” against adults having sex with children and it boasted that it was based on “advanced child psychology and research”. The court heard that among the tips the book offered men wanting to find children for sex was to get a pet, as “you will be a kid magnet”, and to target single mothers who “suffer from a lack of self-confidence” and are desperate for a relationship.
In his police interview the defendant accepted downloading indecent images. For the latest court reports sign up to our crime newsletter here.
Jason Rhydian Church, now of Llangrannog, Llandysul, Ceredigion, had previously pleaded guilty to three counts of possession of indecent images and to possession of a “paedophile manual” – contrary to s69 of the Serious Crime Act 2015 – when he appeared in the dock for sentencing. He has no previous convictions.
Regan Walters, for Church, said the defendant had cooperated with police who came to his address and had already sought help from the Lucy Faithfull Foundation, a charity which works to prevent child sexual abuse. He said the defendant knew he should not have been searching for and downloading the kind of material found on his device and said it was unfortunate that he “chose to bypass that understanding”. The barrister said that while in no way intended to be an excuse for Church’s behaviour his client had been suffering from depression since 2019 something which “informed his consumption of alcohol” – a situation which spiralled during the Covid pandemic. He added that as a result of his offending his client had lost his managerial job with a timber frame business, which had been a “devastating loss” for him.
Judge Huw Rees said viewing material of the kind found on Church’s phone would be a “harrowing experience for right-thinking people” but for the defendant was “a source of a base, crude sexual preoccupation”. The judge said the children shown in the images on Church’s device were real children being sexually abused and exploited “to satisfy the degenerate and lustful demands” of people like the defendant and he said in his view Church posed “a risk and a danger to children”.
With a one-third discount for his guilty pleas Church was sentenced to 22 months in prison comprising 16 months for possession of indecent images and six months for possession of the paedophile manual to run consecutively. The defendant will serve up to half that sentence in custody before being released on licence to serve the remainder in the community. Church will be a registered sex offender for 10 years and was made the subject of a sexual harm prevention order for the same length of time.
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