The appeal against sentence was dismissed. Clifford Drake appears to have had contact with Andrew Prichodsky in Prima Recruitment UK Ltd.
Hopefully @thewakeupcall09 will put that information into the comments here, otherwise people will have to search his twitter timeline for it.
Redaction
Some court reports have had victims names redacted and some assault details redacted.
This is a difficult balance – normally I would think that I should not “censor” details but on consultation with various people I have taken the decision to redact. This is mainly to protect victims, their friends and relatives from unnecessary detail and to stop the gratification of those who seek salacious details.
In addition to the obvious “victims redaction” to protect victims details, there may also be “assault redaction” across most of the spectrum of abuse. The assaults are left in the charges, but mainly redacted when repeated with reference to the individual. I have also redacted unnecessary detail of assaults.
Redaction may obscure sometimes the legal reason for the appeal, but should make no large difference to the vital information for researchers that these documents contain. That vital information is mainly names of the perpetrators, past addresses, institutions where assaults occurred, the actual charges the perpetrators faced, and dates – on which newspapers are pathetically inaccurate and this information enables the links between people and places and abuse at various times to be ascertained.
Some transcripts may have been subject to automatic reading software and whilst effort has been made to correct these, the text should not be regarded as definitive. Common mistakes in reprinting here are that quotation marks are sometimes not correct, replaced by odd symbols.
If you think that the balance is not correct or that a particular redaction needs reconsideration, please say.
This appeal is unredacted by cathy fox blog
Index of Newspaper and Journal articles on this blog [1]
Index of Court Appeals on this blog [2]
[2012] EWCA Crim 1281
No. 2012/01920/A3
IN THE COURT OF APPEAL CRIMINAL DIVISION
Wednesday 23 May 2012
The Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales
Regina
v.
Clifford Nigel Drake
Computer Aided Transcription by Wordwave International Ltd (a Merrill Communications Company) 165 Fleet Street, London EC4 Telephone No: 020 7404 1400; Fax No: 020 7404 1424 (Official Shorthand Writers to the Court)
Mr J Shaw appeared on behalf of the Appellant
Judgment
As Approved by the Court
Wednesday 23 May 2012
THE LORD CHIEF JUSTICE: I shall ask
Mr Justice Openshaw to give the judgment of the court.
MR JUSTICE OPENSHAW:
1. On 2 March 2011 in the Crown Court at Chester, following his earlier pleas of guilty, the appellant was sentenced by His Honour Judge Elgan Edwards (the Recorder of Chester) as follows: on count 3 (possessing indecent photographs of a child for show, contrary to section 1(1)(c) of the Protection of Children Act 1978), to 12 months’ imprisonment; on counts 4 to 18 inclusive (making indecent photographs of a child, contrary to section 1(1)(a) of that Act), to six months’ imprisonment; and on count 19 (a rolled-up charge relating to 4,096 images of possessing indecent photographs of children, contrary to section 160(1) of the Criminal Justice Act 1988), to six months’ imprisonment, those sentences to run concurrently, making twelve months’ imprisonment in all. Other counts were left to lie on the file on the usual terms. He now appeals against sentence with the leave of the single judge.
2. The facts are as follows. On 7 December 2010 the appellant took two computers into a local repair shop in Bollington, near Macclesfield. When the engineer started work he discovered that there were indecent images of children upon them and immediately notified the police. The computers were seized and examined. They were found to have upon them over 4,000 indecent images and videos of children, of which 3,000 odd were at level 1, 600 odd at level 2, 65 at level 3, 300 odd at level 4 and two at level 5. Very many of the images had been stored within a folder to which other users could have had access. There was, however, no evidence that anyone else had accessed the folder or any of its contents. The appellant claimed that he was unaware that the folder could be accessed by others, but this would seem to us to be inconsistent with his plea of guilty to an offence the particulars of which allege that he had these images “in his possession …. with a view to their being distributed or shown by him or another”.
3. On 10 December 2010 the appellant was arrested. When interviewed he admitted downloading the images and said that his interest was in boys aged between 13 and 18. There was clear evidence from the file histories that he had been searching the internet for pornography depicting underage boys, and that he had engaged in conversation with others regarding having sex with them.
4. The appellant was aged 58. He had no relevant previous convictions. There was a number of testimonials praising the charitable work which he had done in the community. He was not in good health. A report from his general practitioner stated that he was suffering some post-concussive injury resulting from a road accident many years ago.
5. The pre-sentence report suggested that he struggled to accept responsibility for his offending. Although he was said to present a risk of harm to adolescent boys, the author recommended a community order with requirements of supervision and a Sex Offender Programme.
6. The judge had personally examined a selection of these images and he was not impressed with the probation officer’s recommendation. He noted the appellant’s good character and his poor health. He noted the charge on count 3 as being particularly serious because although it did not involve actual distribution, it made the images available to others who wished to log onto his site. That, he said, was conduct which could not be tolerated. Custody was inevitable. He passed the sentences to which we have already referred.
7. It is now argued that the sentence was manifestly excessive having regard to the facts of the case, the sentencing guidelines and the mitigation arising from the appellant’s personal circumstances. Mr Shaw on his behalf has referred us to a number of cases, some decided before the guidelines came into forces, others depending on their own special facts. In this case the type and nature of the appellant’s activity is somewhere between “a large number of level 3 images shown or distributed”, which has a starting point of twelve months’ custody and a sentencing range of six months to two years, and “possession of a large quantity of level 3 material for personal use” and/or possession of a “large number of level 2 images shown or distributed” and/or a “small number of level 3 images shown or distributed”, with a starting point of six months and a range of one month to 18 months.
8. In the circumstances, when the appellant has placed so many indecent images in a folder “with a view to their being distributed or shown”, it seems to us that a starting point of 18 months after a trial was not manifestly excessive since it is within the brackets allowed under the guidelines. The judge allowed him a full discount of one-third to reflect his timely guilty plea. The resultant sentence of twelve months’ imprisonment is not excessive. Accordingly, the appeal is dismissed.
Please note that victims of abuse may be triggered by reading this information. These links are generally UK based.
- The Sanctuary for the Abused [A] has advice on how to prevent triggers.
- National Association for People Abused in Childhood [B] has a freephone helpline and has links to local support groups.
- One in Four [C]
- Havoca [D].
- Useful post on Triggers [E] from SurvivorsJustice [F] blog.
- Jim Hoppers pages on Mindfulness [G] and Meditation [H] may be useful.
- Hwaairfan blog An Indigenous Australian Approach to Healing Trauma [J]
- Survivors UK for victims and survivors of male rape or the sexual abuse of men [K]
- Voicing CSA group [L] helps arrange survivors meetings in your area
- A Prescription for me blog Various emotional support links [M]
- ShatterBoys -“Male Survivors Of Childhood Sexual Abuse Inspiring change, Through Shared Experience Whilst Building Connections…Together We Can Heal” [N]
Links
[1] Index of Newspaper and Journal articles on this blog https://cathyfox.wordpress.com/2015/05/23/newspaper-stories-index-timeline/
[2] Index of Court Appeals EWCA on this blog https://cathyfox.wordpress.com/2015/05/08/a-timeline-of-court-and-ewca-documentation-on-cathy-fox-blog/
[A] Sanctuary for the Abused http://abusesanctuary.blogspot.co.uk/2006/07/for-survivors-coping-with-triggers-if.html
cathy fox blog on child abuse 
Reblogged this on HOLLIE GREIG JUSTICE E mail holliegreigjusticee@gmail.com.
LikeLike
Pingback: CATHY FOX Roger Laing 2015 Oct 2 Court of Appeal | HOLLIE GREIG JUSTICE E mail holliegreigjusticee@gmail.com
Pingback: An Index and Timeline of Court and Court of Appeal Documents on Cathy Fox Blog | cathy fox blog on child abuse