“It’s all role play and there are no real children involved”

Thursday 07 November 2019

A 49-year-old man told Police officers that indecent images and videos of minors found on his laptop were "role play" and didn't involve "real children", the Royal Court heard on the first day of his trial.

The protest came from Leon Peter Journeaux, who denies having made a total of 35 indecent images of children between June 2015 and April 2018.

His trial, which is being heard by Commissioner Sir Michael Birt and two Jurats, opened in the Royal Court yesterday morning.

Presenting the case for the prosecution, Crown Advocate Conrad Yates told the Court that the images had been found on two laptops belonging to Mr Journeaux, which Police seized after their search.

In addition to the images, officers found peer-to-peer file sharing software that enables users to share images, video and other documents with others.

The Crown Advocate said that people sharing indecent images could be found using the system.

Pictured: Police seized Mr Journeaux's electronic devices in April 2018.

The Court heard that when Mr Journeaux was arrested, he told police officers: “It’s all role play and there are no real children involved.” This, the Crown Advocate described as “a classic attempt to distance himself from what he was viewing".

Mr Journeaux also claimed he wasn’t interested in children but rather in mature women. However, Advocate Yates noted that “stating a lack of interest in children is not in itself a defence."

He explained that the Crown must show, “...the defendant downloaded material intentionally in the knowledge that what he was downloading was, or was likely to be, an indecent image of a child."

While he said the file names of the images were not explicit, Mr Journeaux’s browsing habits were, “...key to understand his expectations in relation to the material."

He told the Court one of Mr Journeaux’s hard drives had showed he was interested, “...not simply in mature women but in sexual content involving mature women and young boys."

“The Crown case is that, in spite of these obvious references indicating potentially illegal content, the defendant was prepared to download them anyway,” he added.

Pictured: Police found 35 indecent images of children on Mr Journeaux's laptop.

Analysis of one of the laptops also indicated Mr Journeaux had searched for material related to “mum-son sex” and other extreme pornography. 

The Crown Advocate noted the defendant’s appetite for downloading this type of pornography increased over time. 

The files Mr Journeaux downloaded rarely mentioned young girls or adult males, the prosecutor continued, but focused instead on mature women and young boys, which appeared to be his “clear interest".

The Crown Advocate said Mr Journeaux was “clearly not adverse to downloading titles that contained reference to indecent material” and had been “harvesting whatever extreme pornography he could that appeared to match his particular interest."

He added the material that Mr Journeaux downloaded did in fact contain indecent images of children or material of a paedophilic nature.

“Having viewed some of that material, it did not stop him continuing to dredge this peer-to-peer swamp for similar material,” he said. “This isn’t the case where having realised the files contained or risked containing indecent images, the defendant deleted them or stopped using the software.

"He continued in his course of action and downloading the particular type of extreme porn he was interested in.”      

Pictured: The Crown Advocate told Court Mr Journeaux's search history indicated his interest for "mum-son sex" and other extreme pornography.

Crown Advocate Yates said Mr Journeaux had kept the images accessible in the downloads folder and had gone back to view a video involving a child on at least one occasion.

In his interview with Police, which was read in Court, Mr Journeaux admitted he had used the file sharing software to look for pornography, but refused to comment on what type.

The prosecution called Darren Lopez-Rubio, a computer expert from Jersey Police, to explain how the software worked. He also went through Mr Journeaux’s search history.

The trial against Mr Journeaux, who is being defended by Advocate Luke Sette, is expected to continue until Friday.