British Man Jailed on Child Pornography Charges After Offended Burglars Turn His Laptop Over to Poli

Sunday, August 16, 2009

A British man has been sentenced to three-and-a-half-years in prison after burglars found images of child pornography on his stolen laptop and turned it over to the police.

Richard Coverdale was convicted of downloading pictures of child abuse as well as exposing himself to an unsuspecting teenage girl over the internet while posing as a 14-year-old boy, according to Gazettelive.com.

Police started investigating the 24-year-old convicted arsonist after burglars discovered the images on a laptop they stole from Coverdale's house in August 2008 and contacted police, the Web site reported.

According to prosecutors, the officers found 13 illegal photos and 65 illegal videos on the computer and uncovered online conversations between Coverdale and a 14-year-old girl, during which Coverdale pretended to be a fictitious 14-year-old boy named Danny, Gazettelive.com reported.

The last of those conversations, which took place days before the burglary, showed Coverdale invited the girl to watch "Danny" on a webcam, then filmed himself performing a sex act, the site reported.

Coverdale was sent to a juvenile detention for four years in 2003 for setting fired to five properties in one night — some with people inside, according to Gazettelive.com.

In addition to his new sentence, Coverdale has been banned for life from working with children and is schedule to receive a sexual offences prevention order this week, the site reported.

Source - Fox News

Source - Gazette Live (original)

This guys deserves the book thrown at him. Lock him up and throw away the keys. People like him disgust me. What makes me angrier are the hand-slapped penalties and easy jailtime sexual offenders get in today's society.

I do wonder what happened to the burglars. Did they say to the cops, "Hey, we got a bigger fish for you to fry if you don't care how we obtained this laptop."

Now what was the chant in "SCUM" ?

Sex case, sex case, hang him, hang him, hang him....

Something along those lines...

hmmm I am more inclined to thin k of what type of society we have that can produce such a monster.
when all things are equal in the mental department only society produces the monsters..Noone is born thinking oh I know what I am going to do when I grow up i will become evil.

Take a good look at him then and if you look hard enough its society looking back....

So the theif has morals????


Did anyone think or check if those items were added after the laptop was stolen???

I'm wondering.

Since when is stolen property admisable in court? It was obtained through illegal means, therefore cannot be presented as evidence can it?

This man should be set free on technicality. Mind you I agree he's scum and should be locked up or worse ( I prefer worse).

But the law needs to follow due process.

~Keeper

reply to post by mrmonsoon

No his lawyer is from the Bozo the clown school of law and failed to find this crucial piece of info out.

You an untrained person in the way of the law had this question pop into your head first, before all other questions.

Don't you think this crossed the minds of those who are involved in this case?

reply to post by tothetenthpower


That only applies if the person who took it illegally is a cop.

If I break into you house and find a tape of you killing someone, then you are going to jail for murder.

reply to post by tothetenthpower


I'm with you on this. Since when is stolen property admissible in court?

Originally posted by jd140
If I break into you house and find a tape of you killing someone, then you are going to jail for murder.

What if I'm a CGI expert and I can make it look like you murdered someone. Then I find my enemy [you], fake a robbery, and go to the cops with my fake video. Thus putting you in jail?

I know that's far out there, but so is a video of a murder vs. pictures on a laptop. Those pictures and videos could have been added at a later time. Therefore, according to law, there is a slight chance of innocence.

If this were in the United States instead of the United Kingdom, then you are right, the evidence would be inadmissible, and even if it were admitted, there would be little, if no way to prove guilt beyond reasonable doubt, for the fact that the evidence could have been planted post-theft.

However, U.K. law is a little different than U.S. law (actually a lot different).

Still, I think this is Instant Karma.

In retrospect, I wish I had the same temerity that the thieves in this story had, when years ago I had found Child Pornography on the computer of a friend of my family. I was going to go to the authorities about it, but my wife (who I later found out was having an affair with the guy) begged me not to. I still filed an anonymous tip with the FBI, but to my knowledge it was never followed up on. If I had taken the evidence directly to them, the guy would have been behind bars where he belonged. So, for that, I have to salute these thieves...two wrongs don't make a right, but they did do something right and you have to give them credit for that.

Well, this seems to set a dangerous precedent if evidence obtained illegally by anyone not an Law Enforcement Officer can be used as evidence in the court of law; How long might it be before the Law gets this power too?

reply to post by fraterormus


Great story, fraterormus. I wish the FBI did do something about your family's friend. I'm sure you got madder when you find out your wife was sleeping with him. Too bad you couldn't make a image copy of his harddrive to submit later on.

I wish someone had info about the burglars. Did the burglars get a deal for turning in that evidence? Or did they drop off the laptop annoymously with a letter? Wish I knew. Kudos for the burglars turning in the laptop. But a slap to the face for being burglars.

I just wish Coverdale any other sexual offenders got stiffer penalties.

Originally posted by Nutter

Originally posted by jd140
If I break into you house and find a tape of you killing someone, then you are going to jail for murder.

What if I'm a CGI expert and I can make it look like you murdered someone. Then I find my enemy [you], fake a robbery, and go to the cops with my fake video. Thus putting you in jail?

I know that's far out there, but so is a video of a murder vs. pictures on a laptop. Those pictures and videos could have been added at a later time. Therefore, according to law, there is a slight chance of innocence.

What if I go to the moon and kill one of those aliens who are suppose to live there and video tape it and show it on earth. Do I still go to jail since I wasn't on earth and I did not kill a human being?


See I can make up outrageous scenerios too.

Good on the Burglars I say. Yes, they are Burglars, but they are Burglars who while stealing a computer maintain a certain standard of principles.


All other offenders in prisons, Burglars, robbers, GBH, whatever, view Paedophiles as scum, and little mercy will be shown to one should they be discovered.

There's what is considered breaking the law, then there is being downright scum.

Of course, rarely is a crime victimless, but with Paedophilia, it's viewed by other criminals as not just as a crime, but just by the basic instinct of humanity, utterly wrong without any excuse. And criminals are people too at the end of the day. Just because they rob a bank or break into a house and steal things does not neccessarily make them become people who do not have a natural and justifiable disgust for paedophiles.


There's robbing a bank and burgling a house when a house is empty, and then there is commiting horrific acts on Children. It's polars apart to criminals.

Originally posted by fraterormus

In retrospect, I wish I had the same temerity that the thieves in this story had, when years ago I had found Child Pornography on the computer of a friend of my family. I was going to go to the authorities about it, but my wife (who I later found out was having an affair with the guy) begged me not to. I still filed an anonymous tip with the FBI, but to my knowledge it was never followed up on. If I had taken the evidence directly to them, the guy would have been behind bars where he belonged. So, for that, I have to salute these thieves...two wrongs don't make a right, but they did do something right and you have to give them credit for that.

Sorry, but if I found Child Porno on the computer of a friend of my family I am going to ring the police, friend or no friend, begging wife pleading me not to regardless. The thought of having the risk of this person being allowed and able to prey on more children because of my inaction over the issue would be too much for my concious to bear.


I appreciate you made an anonymous tip, but unfortunatly, such tips are liable to be treated as merely malicious and/or unsubstantiated without a willingness to give a name and more details of your claims.


As for your wife having an affair with a Paedophile and willing to defend him from you.... It sounds like you are better off without her. I really hope you did not take her back.

[edit on 18-8-2009 by Regensturm]