Former teacher Howard Codell avoided jail for possessing child exploitation material

After a long career in special education, a teacher was dobbed in by his friend who uncovered hundreds of child abuse images in a strange hiding spot.

A former teacher caught with hundreds of child exploitation files was dobbed in by a friend after he found the images hidden around a rural property.

Howard Frank Codell, 72, avoided jail in the Adelaide District Court earlier this month after his collection of child abuse material was discovered in a bizarre hiding spot.

The court heard Codell was hospitalised and asked his friend to keep an eye on his Wilmington home and feed the animals on March 13 2019.

The friend found a shopping bag in the feed bin.

“When he finished feeding the animals he looked inside the shopping bag and found pornographic images,” Judge Chapman said.

“He found one that he believed to be child exploitation material and so did not look further through the bag.”

The court heard Codell’s friend looked through the rest of the feed bins and found 13 more plastic bags which police seized.

There were 873 images in the 14 bags, 502 of which were aggravated because the children depicted were under the age of 14.

Almost of all the images were in category one, which depicts children involving no sexual activity and category six, which is anime, cartoons or drawings depicting children engaged in sexual poses or activity.

“The child exploitation material looked as though it had been downloaded from the internet, then printed off as a hard copy,” Judge Chapman said.

“Some of it had been cut out and pasted onto larger pieces of paper.

“It is evident that the material had been collated by you over a period of time.”

Howard Codell avoided jail in the Adelaide District Court for possessing child exploitation material. Picture: File

Codell, of Wilmington, had previously pleaded guilty to two counts of possessing child exploitation material.

The court heard Codell who had worked full-time as a teacher and special education teacher until the age of 57 was a father-of-two and showing early stages of possible vascular dementia.

His eldest daughter is now estranged from him as a result of the charges.

“The children in the images are the victims of your crime,” Judge Chapman said.

“They are children who have been sexually exploited by other people. You support that exploitation by accessing and downloading the images from the internet.”

Judge Chapman sentenced Codell to one year and ten months jail, with a non-parole period of 11 months.

Taking into account Codell’s mental illness, the sentence was suspended on a good behaviour bond for three years, with supervision for 18-months.