Man blamed grandma's carers for child abuse images found on laptop in Rugby

Chay Kowalczyk had pleaded not guilty at Warwick Crown Court to six charges of making indecent images of children between August 2012 and August 2014.

But at the end of his three-day trial the jury found him guilty of all six charges, involving 344 still indecent images and 15 movies.

The case was adjourned for a pre-sentence report to be prepared on him, and Kowalczyk, aged 30, of Bawnmore Road, Rugby, who was ordered to register as a sex offender, was granted bail.

Prosecutor Matthew Brook said that in August 2014 the police arrested Kowalczyk, who lived with his grandmother, on suspicion of downloading indecent images of children.

From his bedroom they seized a laptop computer which he accepted was his, and he was taken to Rugby police station where he was interviewed.

Kowalczyk denied ever using the laptop to go onto the internet looking for child pornography.

“He said he had used the laptop to go onto what is called the dark web, which he knew was renowned for illegal activity including child pornography.

“But the reason he gave for going onto the dark web was that he was aware Google was storing everyone’s data.

“He said he had a brief look at the dark web and had seen a home page for a nude teen site, but there had been no images on it and he had clicked off the site.

“In that interview he said he was not aware of anyone else using his laptop, but claimed it was possible for people sat outside the house to hack into his internet.”

Mr Brook said Kowalczyk was bailed pending an examination of the laptop by police hi-tech officers who found a number of indecent images of children on it.

There were 66 stills and ten movies classed as being in category A, which is defined as showing children being subjected to penetrative sex acts.

In addition there were 55 stills and two movies in category B, showing children in non-penetrative sex acts, and 223 stills and three movies in category C of an indecent nature but without actual sexual activity.

Some of them had been downloaded using software which had been used to carry out searches such as ‘pre-teen sex’ within an hour of being installed on Kowalczyk’s laptop in March 2014.

But when he was interviewed again, he again denied he had carried out the searches or that he had been looking at child pornography, said Mr Brook.

Kowalczyk claimed to the police and in his evidence in court that there were a lot of people who visited the house to care for his grandmother, including doctors, nurses and carers.

And he suggested one or more of them had used his computer without his knowledge to look at child pornography while in the house caring for his grandmother.

But the jury rejected that suggestion after Mr Brook commented: “The prosecution say it’s his laptop – it’s him using it to look at the images of child pornography.”