Jailed for child sex offences (From The Wiltshire Gazette and Herald)

Jailed for child sex offences

A SCIENTIST has been jailed for three-and-a-half years after admitting a string of child sex offences.

Martin Schwarz was jailed for a year last October after admitting indecent assault on a 12-year-old girl in what his barrister described as an "isolated and ugly episode".

But after he was jailed, his wife found a load of computer equipment which contained images of child porn. And investigators also uncovered indecent pictures of Schwarz, from Hook, near Wootton Bassett, and children.

Colin Meeke, prosecuting, told Swindon Crown Court it was found that the scientist had been abusing three girls when they were aged six, nine and 11 years old.

He said images were stored on the machines which had been taken on a digital camera and showed him in indecent poses with two of the girls. In one of the pictures he was laying naked with the nine-year-old naked on top of him, the court was told.

Police also found a number of other images of the girls in various states of undress and indecent poses.

They also found hundreds of child abuse pictures downloaded from the internet on the computers and storage media, much of which had been bought after his earlier arrest.

Mr Meeke said that police were already investigating Schwarz's other computers, which were seized before he was jailed last year.

When the machines were examined, Mr Meeke said, they were found to have thousands of illicit pictures and films, many of the most depraved kind.

He said that police investigating the case found so many pictures that they had stopped counting.

Schwarz, formerly of Bolingbroke Close, Hook, but now living at a hostel in Oxford, admitted two indecent assaults and 24 charges of making, taking or possessing indecent images of children.

Jonathan Simpson, defending, said that his client had been jailed for a year last October with an extra long licence so he could undergo a sex offenders' programme.

He was released in the spring and as a consequence had not had a chance to do the programme yet.

Mr Simpson said his client was now being divorced by his wife and had lost his home.

Referring to the indecent assault on the nine-year-old, Judge Tom Longbotham described it as one of the worst of its kind.

He said: "Not only did you indecently assault her but it was clear that someone else was using the camera at the time, no doubt with your consent, because you were photographed."

Schwarz was jailed for three-and-a-half years with a one-year extended licence so he can do the sex offenders' course when he gets out.

He was also disqualified from working with children and a sexual offenders prevention order was made against him, to restrict his contact with children when he is released.

Schwarz, who used to be treasurer of the North Wiltshire Classic Car Club, had also lost his highly-skilled job making equipment measuring radiation at Ministry of Defence installations and nuclear power plants.