AN OSWESTRY IT professional ‘should have known between right and wrong’ when it came to child sexual abuse images and extreme porn, a judge has said.

Simon Mark Harris, 37, of Sandford in Oswestry, avoided jail at Shrewsbury Crown Court on Friday, May 3 despite being convicted of possessing category A child sex abuse images and extreme pornography.

Judge Peter Barrie sentenced him to 10 months in prison but suspended it for 18 months and ordered him to pay £1,500 towards the prosecution’s costs for the offences, which were first discovered in 2017.

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He also reduced Harris’s sentence because his case took nearly five years to come to court before a trial which saw him convicted of some offences, but cleared of others.

But His Honour Judge Barrie told the defendant – who is an IT expert – that even though he had not offended for seven years, his line of work should have better informed his decision making.

He said: “Although your offending goes back a few years, you have been professionally involved in computers with customers and dealing with their problems.

“As someone with a professional background in computers, you’re bound to understand when pornography becomes illegal because of its extremism.

“And also to understand the harm done to children when sexual abuse happens and is downloaded and distributed.

“It’s an aggravating factor that you were professionally involved in computers when you did this.

“On the other side of the coin, you have no previous convictions and an excellent work record.

“Also, these charges go back to 2017 and took a long time to come to trial and the material found on there goes back even further than that.

“I think it is appropriate to make a discount to reflect the passing of time before it came in front of the jury.

“I say that is 10 months in prison – I heard a lot about you and had time to study you in the trial.

“You were acquitted in parts of the trial and in my view this is a sentence that I can and should suspend for 18 months.

“You’re not suitable for unpaid work because of your mobility issues but you are suitable for a curfew and it will impinge on your training business but not your everyday work.”

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Judge Barrie placed Harris on a curfew of 7pm until 5am for 12 weeks, meaning the defendant’s work in training businesses in networking will be impacted.

Rosemary Proctor, defending, had told the court that her client ‘stands a very good chance of rehabilitation’.

Judge Barrie set a new date of Tuesday, May 28 for a sexual harm prevention order to be handed down after Miss Proctor and prosecutor John Oates could not agree on its terms.