A perverted teenager with a sick sexual interest in young children was caught with videos showing a baby and a four-year-old child being abused.

Owen Waterson’s latest offending came to light when a routine check by specialist police officers discovered he had been surfing the dark web to find sickening images and sharing them with other perverts.

Teesside Crown Court heard how he was also using pseudonyms online, despite being subject to a sexual harm prevention order to protect the public, to regularly access the dark web and paedophile forums.

Uzma Khan, prosecuting, said the 19-year-old’s Darlington home was searched by police in June this year when concerns were raised about his nefarious online activities.

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A search of his digital devices and USB memory sticks revealed that he had also amassed a large number of sickening images and told officers he had accessed and shared more than 4,000 indecent images of children in less than a month, despite officers being unable to find any evidence.

Miss Khan said: “During the police interview, he admitted downloading the images saying he had a longstanding sexual interest in children. He admitted to uploading indecent images, accessing indecent images on the ‘dark web’ and engaging with paedophile forums online where indecent images were shared.”

The court heard how Waterson was made subject of a sexual harm prevention order and a notification order in January last year and admitted sharing a number of indecent images of children with other paedophiles.

Miss Khan said the defendant admitted carrying out sex acts while viewing the indecent images before deleting them from his phones and had done so for a number of years.

Waterson, of Kitchener Way, Darlington, pleaded guilty to three counts of possessing indecent images of a child, three counts of distributing incident images of a child, two counts of breaching the Sex Offenders’ Register and one count of breaching his Sexual Harm Prevention Order.

Christopher Bevan, in mitigation, said his client had shown unusual candour in his admissions to the probation service and wants to address his behaviour.

He said: “In his interview with probation he said he wanted to get caught and be stopped. He has been frank from the very beginning that he has a sexual interest in children and says he can’t help it.”

Recorder Thomas Moran sentenced Waterson to 16 months in a young offenders’ institute but suspended it for two years.

He said: “You admitted that this was an addiction you had, you even said that you hoped you would be caught and forced to stop – that is an unusual degree of candour for somebody charged with these offences.”

Waterson was also ordered to take part in 40 sessions on a sexual offenders’ programme and attend 50 rehabilitation activity requirement days.

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