Paedophile: Please castrate me

4:27pm Friday 15th February 2008

A dangerous paedophile today asked for chemical castration as a judge jailed him indefinitely for a sick catalogue of abuse.

Glen Want was locked up after police discovered pictures of himself spanking a nine-year-old boy on his computer.

Officers also found other sickening downloaded images of child abuse when they raided his Eastbourne home.

Some of the children were aged between one and eight.

Documents containing references to masochism, torture and even the death of young children were also discovered.

Want, 42, yesterday told a judge he wanted to be chemically castrated to curb his sick urges.

He said he wanted to volunteer for treatment which would leave him impotent.

Elizabeth Smaller, prosecuting, said more than 11,000 child abuse images were found in the raid at Want's home in Oak Tree Close, Eastbourne, in July.

They included 903 Level Four pictures of penetrative sex with children.

There were also 43 of the highest Level Five images of scenes of masochism and other more serious sexual abuse.

Two holdalls crammed with childrens' clothes and underwear were hidden in a lock-up outside his home.

The boy being spanked by Want was the son of a family he had befriended, Hove Crown Court heard yesterday.

Want pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting the boy and ten charges of making and possessing indecent images.

He was jailed for five years in 2002 for indecency and encouraging children to pose for pictures.

The sentence was reduced to four years after Want, who uses a wheelchair, appealed.

He tried to sue the Home Office in 2004, claiming the wheelchair he was given in Lewes prison was unsuitable.

He claimed his human rights had been breached because it did not work properly.

Richard Cherrill, defending, told the court yesterday that Want is suffering from a brain tumour.

Mr Cherrill added: "He asks me to draw to the court's attention a newspaper story about chemical castration.

"He is very anxious to undergo such treatment, and hopefully he will be able to receive it.

"Through me he declares his willingness to undergo that treatment voluntarily.

"He is determined to rid himself of his dysfuntional sexual desires."

Mr Cherrill said the spanking picture had been taken by the boy's sister who had pulled down the boy's trousers and pants in fun.

Their mother was unaware that Want was a convicted paedophile when it happened.

Mr Cherrill added: "The sexual assault was something of a thought crime.

"Although he did not initiate it he accepts that when this occurred his thoughts were sexual."

Judge Anthony Niblett passed an indeterminate sentence for public protection.

Want will not be released until he is no longer considered to be a danger.

The judge said that had he passed a determinate sentence Want would have been jailed for ten years.

He would be released after serving half that time behind bars.

On that basis it will be at least five years before Want can even be considered for parole.

Want already has to sign as a sex offender for life.

He will also be banned indefinitely from working with or having unsupervised contact with children under 16.

Judge Niblett said: "Each one of those young children in those images was, in my judgement, seriously harmed.

"You are, to use the words of your counsel, a very disturbed individual.

"You are, in my view, a dangerous paedophile whose offences show an entrenched pre-occupation with young children.

"I have no doubt that you pose a risk to young children of serious harm by you."