Watford man due in crown court over 73 bestiality images

David Baruch, of Grandfield Avenue, appeared in Willesden Magistrates’ Court on Friday, November 8, and indicated a guilty plea to making indecent category C images of children.

The 67-year-old also faces two other charges of making indecent photographs/pseudo-photographs of children – for category A and category B images respectively – and one charge of possessing extreme pornographic images.

Harrow Crown Court. (Image: Yui Mok/PA) No plea was recorded for those three charges and Baruch is next scheduled to appear, for a plea and trial preparation hearing, at Harrow Crown Court on December 6.

According to court documents, 69 category C still images of children were found on an Apple iMac and two category C indecent images were found on a USB stick.

Six category B and five category A indecent still indecent images of children were allegedly also found on the devices.

The charge for extreme pornographic images refers to 73 still images which portrayed “in an explicit and realistic way, a person performing an act of intercourse with a live unknown animal which were grossly offensive, disgusting or otherwise of an obscene character”.

Court documents say that the charge specified that “a reasonable person” looking at the images in question “would think that any such person or animal was real”.

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The defendant was granted bail with conditions.

All offences allegedly took place in Harrow Weald on July 20, 2020 (for the category C and category B charges) or March 4, 2021 (for the two other charges).

According to the Crown Prosecution Service, category A images of children involve penetrative sexual activity, sexual activity with an animal, or sadism.

Category B means images involving non-penetrative sexual activity while category C covers any indecent image not falling within A or B.