A JUDGE was forced to adjourn the sentencing of a paedophile because he wasn’t provided with the right details by the CPS.

Judge Jason Taylor QC put James Smith’s case back for three weeks after learning that prosecutor Ellen McAnaw had not been provided with the numbers of indecent images and videos of children found on the 47-year-old’s devices.

More than 800 accessible and inaccessible images and films were found on Smith’s computer and USB stick.

But Ms McAnaw was unable to tell the judge how many of those images were duplicates. The numbers stated in court were also higher than those listed in the charges to which Smith pleaded guilty at the magistrates’ court in February.

There was also disagreement between the prosecution and defence over the period of time during which Smith had gathered his vile collection. The Crown said it was between 2013 and 2019, while Smith’s lawyers said it was over a two year period.

Judge Taylor told the prosecutor: “I’d rather just get on with [the hearing] but the fact of the matter is in the note from [Smith’s advocate] Mr Wragg he raises the issues of duplication and he also raises the date issue. That was uploaded six weeks ago.”

He added that he was “not going to shoot the messenger”.

Adjourning the case until May 5, the judge told Smith: “I’m disappointed I can’t proceed to sentence you today. I understand your disappointment will be greater than mine, but I need to bottom this out because the reality is it needs to be fairly reflective of your behaviour.”

Earlier in the hearing, Ms McAnaw told the court that police received information in 2017 that Smith’s IP address had uploaded an indecent image of a child to website Chatstep. It wasn’t until 2019 that the police attended his Swindon home and seized a number of digital devices.

Analysis of his HP computer showed he’d searched the web for terms like “incest” and “rape”.

Smith, of Dunstable, Bedfordshire, pleaded guilty in February to three counts of possession of indecent images. He was represented by Nicholas Wragg.