Samuel Huckle, a paedophile who was found to be in possession of more than 1,000 indecent images of children, some as young as 3-months-old, will not have his sentence passed to the Court of Appeal, the Attorney General’s Office has decided.
Last month’s reporting by Island Echo on the 20-year-old’s sentencing at the Isle of Wight Crown Court sparked anger amongst the local community, with many seeing his 16-month prison sentence, suspended for 2 years, as unduly lenient.
The outrage prompted referrals to be made to the Attorney General’s Office under the unduly lenient scheme, designed to allow the public to request a review of a Crown Court sentence in England and Wales
Islanders were upset that the resident of St Faith’s Road, Cowes was not put behind bars after hearing details of his behaviour, including that he started looking at sexual images of children being ‘horrifically abused’ during lockdown due to ‘curiosity and boredom’, and that he would masturbate to the images he had collected.
Police were tipped off to his sexual attraction to children by the National Crime Agency after posing indecent images of children on Snapchat. The account was traced which led Police to Huckle’s front door in August 2023, where a number of digital devices were seized including 2 phones, a laptop and a desktop computer.
The images found on Samuel Huckle’s devices were of children aged 3 months to 10 years, mostly of girls. One of the worst images portrayed the oral rape of a 2-year-old child.
In total, 532x Category A, 337x Category B and 377x Category C indecent images and videos were found on Huckle’s devices. He had tried to conceal these in a ‘vault’ app on his phone, disguised as a calculator.
Just 3 days after Island Echo’s story went live, it was reported that the Attorney General’s Office had received a request to review Huckle’s sentence – something celebrated by readers.
But now, it has been confirmed that Law Officers will not be referring Huckle’s sentence to the Court of Appeal.
In a statement, a spokesperson for the Attorney General’s Office has said:
“After careful consideration the Solicitor General has concluded that this case cannot properly be referred to the Court of Appeal.
“A referral under the Unduly Lenient Sentence scheme to the Court of Appeal can only be made if a sentence is not just lenient but unduly so, such that the sentencing judge made a gross error or imposed a sentence outside the range of sentences reasonably available in the circumstances of the offence.
“The threshold is a high one, and the test was not met in this case.”
Despite Judge Michael Bowes KC stating that there was some ‘extremely disturbing aspects’ to the case, including Huckle’s dislike of children and the fact he sent out ‘bad stuff to get bad stuff back’, he sentenced Huckle to 16-months, but suspended the sentence for 2 years.
This still stands.
Samuel Huckle is also subject to a 10-year-old Sexual Harm Prevention Order and must complete 18 hours of unpaid work, 10 rehabilitation days and take part in a 26-week accredited programme to address his sexual attraction to children.
So the justice system is gonna just let him off? He is a disgusting piece of s… He lives near a school too!!! Let’s hope he doesn’t ever act on his sick perverted disgusting urges, cos the people responsible for letting him walk free will have that on their consciences?? What is the point of having a justice system when this sicko has been let off Scot free!
sleep with your eyes open u scum!
Of course he has got away with it lightly, after all, our PM at the moment was in charge of the CPS when he let Savile go, “didn’t cross my desk” the old mantra from starmer. Utter scum.
Great…. utter contempt for the victims yet again..
I blame the parents for there two minutes off pleasure for creating a massive mistake,
As I have always said, in cases like this, a suspended sentence, should be met with the words, “BY THE NECK”.