A PERVERT with a vast collection of more than 25,000 child abuse images was brought to justice after his partner alerted the police.
Francis Michael Black had spent five years on the sex offenders' register until 2018 following a similar conviction.
His re-offending came to light when his partner saw some 'disturbing' images on the 61-year-old's mobile phone.
When police searched his electronic devices they discovered his grim collection of abuse images, Teesside Crown Court heard.
Emma Hughes, prosecuting, said 58 Category A images – the most serious offence – were found, along with 68 Category B images and 25,067 Category C images.
Miss Hughes said: "The police received a telephone call from the defendant’s girlfriend. She stated that she and her boyfriend were at her home address where she had been using his mobile telephone and had discovered what she described as explicit content.
"She was aware of the defendant’s previous convictions in 2013 and alerted the police.”
The court heard how children as young as five featured in the most serious images and some showed victims in obvious pain and distress.
Black, of Cameron Road, Hartlepool, pleaded guilty to three charges of possession of indecent images of children following his arrest in April last year.
Martin Scarborough, mitigating, said despite reporting him to the police, Black’s partner attended court to support him.
He said his client had struggled with the start of Covid lockdown, He added: "This offence being discovered some four weeks after that. He thought he was in meltdown. His mind was all over. He was suffering from depression.”
Judge Recorder David Gordon sentenced Black to 15 months in custody and placed him on the sex offenders’ register for ten years for his collection of 'disgusting' images.
"Not everybody resorted to crime and certainly very few people I imagine resorted because of the lockdown to downloading disgusting sexual imagery of children from the internet," he said.
"It is sometimes said that this kind of offending is victimless crime and committed by lonely people in the privacy of their own home or bedroom that simply isn't the case.
"Everyone of those images shows a child being horribly sexually abused."
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