A young man took his interest in looking at indecent images of children to a new level by taking his own photographs of underage girls.

Jack Mellis covertly filmed one girl in a state of undress in a bathroom, and also distributed two other indecent images of a ten-year-old to like-minded individuals.

The 22-year-old defendant, who has no previous offences on his record, went before Durham Crown Court for sentence today (Wednesday September 28) after admitting a five-count indictment, on Tuesday.

Mellis admitted three counts of making (downloading) indecent images of children, one in each of the three categories of severity for such material, and one charge each of voyeurism and distributing indecent photos of children.

Another case was sent to the crown court to be sentenced after he admitted making a category three indecent video of a child, in a separate hearing, before magistrates last week.

Read more: County Durham man spared jail over indecent images of children

Deborah Smithies, prosecuting, told the sentencing hearing the charges arose after police received information that someone using the defendant’s IP address had uploaded two indecent images of a ten-year-old girl on a Reddit site, on December 28, last year.

Officers attended his home on June 9 and spoke to Mellis who said he may have inadvertently downloaded indecent images of children.

His phone was seized and the defendant assisted by providing his pin number to the police.

Miss Smithies said the phone was examined by an expert, revealing it contained 183,000 image files, the vast majority of which were not checked.

But of those that were, 698 indecent child images were found, including 113 in the most serious category, nine of them videos.

Miss Smithies said the examination also revealed a series of three covertly taken videos lasting two-and-a-half minutes showing a girl naked, having dropped a towel while getting changed.

Another video showed a younger girl removing wet clothing.

When interviewed, Mellis admitted having “hundreds” of indecent images on his phone featuring children as young as four or five being sexually abused, but others featured young women up to the age of 19.

He said he obtained them from a website with images in different categories, selecting them from one titled, “Kids”.

Mellis said they were dated back to last year and he admitted “sharing” some images with other people.

When further interviewed he made no comment.

Read more: County Durham man jailed for sharing indecent images of children

Lewis Kerr, in mitigation, said the risk posed by the defendant could be managed in the community.

He said the defendant had taken steps to seek help to address his behaviour with specialist agencies, and he has kept off the internet, as a condition of his bail since his arrest.

Mr Kerr handed a brief letter penned by the defendant to the judge, saying: “He apologises and sincerely recognises the harm he has caused.”

He said the defendant, of Hall Avenue, Ushaw Moor, has lived a in a budget hotel, several miles from home, while on bail awaiting court proceedings.

Mr Kerr urged Judge Jo Kidd to impose a suspended sentence to enable the defendant to continue working to address his behaviour.

Judge Kidd said the indecent photos downloaded by Mellis could have landed him with a custodial sentence on their own, but “more concerning” were the images taken by the defendant himself.

She told Mellis that in June, when he was arrested: “Your interest in looking at children and taking sexual gratification from them was clearly at a high level.”

Judge Kid said regarding the covert videos of the girl changing made by Mellis, that he was, “clearly obsessed with the idea of invading her privacy”.

She said given his youth and immaturity, a Probation Service report author considers the defendant poses, “a high risk of further sexually-motivated offences.”

Imposing an 18-month prison sentence, Judge Kidd made Mellis subject of restrictions using the internet by way of a Sexual Harm Prevention Order, while he must also register as a sex offender, both for ten years.

The judge also made a deprivation order of the phone seized by police.

Read next:

               County Durham man had more than 1,200 indecent images of children

               True extent of indecent image viewer's offending may never be known

               'Bored' ex-JP collected thousands of indecent child images from the internet

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