Wellington, Sept.27 (ANI): A New Zealand-born fitness coach with the England cricket team was jailed last night for six months for downloading child porn movies.
Marques Church, 31, who has worked with star players, including Michael Vaughan and Kevin Pietersen, was arrested after running up a a bill of Sterling 23,000 on his laptop in just a month, Britain’’s Daily Mail reported.
According to a New Zealand Pres Association report, the Internet account was paid for by the England and Wales Cricket Board, which launched an urgent inquiry into the huge bill.
Horrified officials found 13 indecent video clips involving children as young as four in a folder on the machine marked “incomplete”.
Leicester Crown Court was told that 10 of the films were categorised as Level Four and one at Level Five, the most serious category.
Police were called and Church, who specialised in strength and conditioning training, was arrested at his home in Loughborough, Leicester.
He said he had been through a relationship breakdown and was a “low point” in his life, and claimed he had deleted the images after looking at them.
He began working with the England cricket team in April last year but resigned when the offences came to light in June.
Jenny Carter-Manning, defending, said Church had committed the offences during a ”truly awful time” in this life. His fiance of eight years had left him, his father’’s multiple sclerosis worsened and a grandparent died.
He had suffered what could only be described as a “total breakdown” she claimed.
Church, who admitted five counts of making indecent images of children, claimed he had no sexual interest in children and intended to return to New Zealand as soon as possible. (ANI)