Dagenham mum ‘couldn’t delete’ child porn on iPhone
Snaresbrook Crown Court Pic: John Stillwell/PA - Credit: PA Archive/Press Association Ima
A mother-of-six who claimed she only had indecent images of children on her iPhone because she didn’t know how to delete them has avoided jail.
Jacqueline Bennett, 36, had her mobile phone seized when police raided her home in Osbourne Square, Dagenham.
Detectives were investigating her husband, Ronald, 42, after monitoring one of his Gmail accounts which was apparently being used to trawl the internet for sickening material.
Two of the six indecent images found on Mrs Bennett’s iPhone - which had been sent to her by her husband - fell into the most extreme category of child pornography and involved children as young as three.
She admitted possessing the images but denied asking her husband to send them to her - instead insisting that they were only there because she had only recently got the phone and didn’t know how to use the delete function.
Judge Nigel Peters said: “I know I’ve been playing with computers, tablets and phones for a long time, but they have been manufactured in such a way that it’s very easy to delete things.
“If you know how to turn an iPhone on, you know how to delete things.”
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A further charge relating to 1,552 images on a shared laptop was dropped after the prosecution accepted that she was unaware of their existence.
Sentencing Mrs Bennett to four months imprisonment suspended for two years at Snaresbrook Crown Court today, Judge Peters said: “I take this matter extremely seriously, but in the circumstances I am persuaded I can suspend the sentence.”
Mr Bennett, of Frog Street, Epping. was jailed for 16 months after admitting seven counts of possession of indecent images of children and one count of distributing images to his wife.
The couple, who are both unemployed, have since separated.
