Vicar jailed over child porn crimes

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The Reverend Richard Hart, 59, of Whopshott Avenue, Horsell, Woking, appeared before Cardiff Crown Court after pleading guilty at an earlier hearing to 12 charges of making indecent images of children, four of taking indecent photographs of children and five of possessing such images in offences dating back as far as 1991.

The court heard when police raided Hart's vicarage in Beguildy, near Knighton, Mid Wales, in January of this year they found what was described by prosecutor Ieuan Morris as a "veritable Aladdin's Cave" of paedophile material.

Hart, who was suspended from all duties by the Church in Wales following his arrest, was also disqualified from working with children by Judge Michael Burr.

He will also be subject to a 10-year sexual prevention order upon his release that was modified to allow the trained computer programmer to perhaps find paid work with computers.

Officers from Dyfed-Powys Police carried out the raid on January 11 after Hart's credit card details from the illicit websites he accessed, were passed onto them.

Mr Morris said: "What they identified from material in the bedroom was, to a paedophile, a veritable Aladdin's Cave.

"Subsequent examination of the hard drive revealed an array of child pornography."

In addition to 344 printed images, 56,562 images were recovered from Hart's computer. Of these, 1,445 were deemed category four and 44 category five - the most serious and degrading classification of images.

The court heard some of the images were of girls as young as four.