March 2004
Child porn councillor spared jail
A former teacher and Labour councillor walked free from court on Wednesday after admitting viewing child porn.
Nelson Bland, 50, from Reading, was sentenced to 100 hours community service at Reading Magistrates’ Court.
Bland had earlier admitted 16 counts of making indecent images of children and one count of distributing child porn.
Porn was found by police investigating the murder of the husband of Bland’s lover, Carol Croydon. Croydon, from Notts, was jailed for life last month.
Indecent images
The court heard the images were found on a computer seized by Leicestershire police as part of their inquiry into the murder of Philip Croydon.
Magistrate Rod Bailey told Bland, who now lives in Hucknall, Nottingham, that only his earlier guilty plea had saved him from jail.
The court heard Bland had viewed a total of 91 indecent images of children – 15 of which were classed within the second highest level of seriousness.
One picture viewed by magistrates showed a child in shackles.
Bland was also ordered to attend a sex offenders’ retraining programme and it was specified he should remain on the sex offenders’ register for five years.
Carol Croydon (pic below) was jailed for life for repeatedly stabbing her husband to death in a Leicestershire hotel room.
