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Sailors tell court of porn discovery [Herald, The (Plymouth, England)]
[July 30, 2014]

Sailors tell court of porn discovery [Herald, The (Plymouth, England)]


(Herald, The (Plymouth, England) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) ROYAL Navy sailors have told a court how they discovered indecent images of children on a NAAFI worker's hard drive.

Civilian Shaun Sparrow, right, lent the device to a colleague on board aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious when she was anchored in Plymouth Sound, a court heard.

Sparrow, aged 28, of Ashington in Northumberland, is on trial after pleading not guilty to five counts of possessing indecent images in October and November 2011.

He is also charged with making or downloading 28 indecent images on October 24 that year, Plymouth Crown Court heard. He also denies that charge. Sailor James Clarke, giving evidence via videolink from his native Northern Ireland, said it was common for the ship's company to share hard drives to watch movies.



He said he asked Sparrow to borrow his device.

Mr Clarke said: "He gave me the hard drive and said: 'Enjoy'." But he added he could not get the device to work with his laptop and left it in the mess.


Mr Clarke said he was woken later by leading engineering technician Phillip Morris. He said that he was asked where the hard drive came from and told Mr Morris he had borrowed it from Sparrow.

Mr Morris had earlier told the court: "I was in a little bit of an angry state at the time." He said he had viewed a small part of an indecent video with young boys which a colleague had uncovered while looking for a film.

The court heard that police not only found indecent images on the external hard drive but also on Sparrow's laptop and his mobile phone.

The trial continues.

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