• 7 years ago
• Posted in:Child Sexual Abuse, Possession of CSA images, Rape / Sexual Assault, Sexual Offences
• 0
• Author: melodie
• Tags: Blamed partner, Child victim, Convicted 2013, Disabled offender, Gender issues cited as mitigation, John Booth, Multiple victims, No remorse, Offended 2013, Post-transition, pre-GRS, Refused to accept guilt, Swansea, Trans woman, Victim sex unknown, Wales

Silhouette image via Wikimedia Commons

John Booth, a violent male who identifies as a trans woman, was convicted of 25 counts of making or possessing over 100 indecent images of children at Swansea Crown Court in 2013. Booth, was sentenced to 18 weeks in prison. The jury had failed to come to a verdict in relation to charges of rape and sexual assault of a child and not guilty verdicts were recorded by the judge.

Booth’s defence team asked for the sentence to be as low as possible as the defendant had been subject to a lengthy curfew while awaiting trial.

“The time he spends in custody will be more difficult for him, firstly because of his disability but also because of the transgender issues which your honour will have read of.”

At sentencing, the judge “The pre-sentence report isn’t helpful because you maintain a denial for any of these offences. It makes the observation that until you acknowledge your responsibility for this activity, any hope of changing your attitude towards this kind of behaviour is unrealistic. You do not seem to me to be one of those people willing to accept his own behaviour.”

In total police found 117 indecent images and on the scale of one to five, where five is the most serious category, 24 images were classed as category 4, 9 were category 3, 13 were category 2 and there were 71 category one image.

The images were found on five separate computer devices in his Whitland home and the defendant claimed they must have been downloaded by either his former partner or another had downloaded them to “discredit him”. He also claimed he may have inadvertently downloaded them. The images were found on two laptops, a phone, USB drives and a computer; most of them were found in deleted items folders.

Source: https://uk-database.org/2013/06/24/john-booth-whitland/

Media reports

Carmarthen Journal (archived) “Accused Jailed over Indecent Child Pics” June 26, 2013 https://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-34824638.html

Wales Online “Man convicted of possessing indecent images still denies guilt” http://www.thisissouthwales.co.uk/Man-convicted-possessing-indecent-images-denies/story-19374840-detail/story.html  archive