SA pedophile jailed over child pornography

An 82-year-old pedophile has been jailed by a judge who rejected his claim he was searching for classical music when images of shirtless boys appeared on his computer.

Judge David Lovell found Philip Corlett Carey did not accidentally download the images, but nor did he deliberately seek explicit child pornography.

Rather, he deliberately ran the risk of searching for images which perhaps just fell outside or were borderline criminality.

In the South Australian District Court on Tuesday, he jailed Carey for 12 months with a non-parole period of seven months, noting the images were at the lower end of seriousness.

Carey, whose long history of sexual offending dates back to the 1960s, pleaded guilty to aggravated possession of child pornography at his Adelaide home in July 2011.

He has served many jail terms and was on parole at the time for breaching paedophile restraining orders.

Another judge who sentenced him previously had described Carey as a pathetic case, saying he was subject to temptations most men do not have to cope with but that the public must be protected from him.

Judge Lovell said the latest offending involved hundreds of images of boys, under 14, in erotic poses but not engaged in any sexual activity.

"You appear to have little insight into your behaviour," he said.

"You believe the images do not amount to child pornography."

He noted a psychiatric report concluded that because of Carey's age, he posed a low risk to physically offending against children and a moderate risk of carrying out child pornography offences.

While Carey had expressed shame for his past behaviour against children, he believed his current offending was victimless.

"It is not,"the judge added.