Cabbie with ‘sordid interest in children’ had indecent pics
JON MACPHERSON
ATAXI driver with a ‘sordid sexual interest in children’ downloaded indecent images after joining a social media group chat, a court heard.
Stephen Borsellotti, from Church, viewed the images on the Kik Messenger app and they included victims as young as ‘eight or nine’ years old.
Prosecutor Lisa Worsley said police attended his home on Church Street in September 2018 to conduct an ‘intel visit’ after they received information about the ‘potential sharing of an [indecent] image’ on social networking site Tumblr.
Burnley Crown Court heard that officers recovered seven category A images – the most serious – nine category B and 10 category C images from his mobile phone and showed some of the victims ‘in pain and grimacing’
Ms Worsley said Borsellotti told police that a link to the illegal images was shared by another person on the Kik group and he clicked on it.
When interviewed by the probation service, the defendant admitted that his partner had also ‘smashed his phone’ after finding other indecent images ‘some years ago’.
Defence barrister Duncan Nightingale said Borsellotti has now had his taxi licence revoked and is ‘ashamed of his actions and expresses remorse’.
He told the court: “These images are few in number and they were over a short period of time.
“He had not fully appreciated the effect on the child victims but the penny has now dropped and he realises there are victims in these kind of offences.”
Mr Nightingale said the defendant had voluntarily paid to go on a course with abuse charity SafeLives and was engaging with Accrington charity Maundy Relief.
He told the court that Borsellotti is assessed as posing a ‘low risk of reoffending’ and there was ‘a good constructive report’ by the probation service.
Borsellotti, 59, pleaded guilty to three counts of making indecent images of children.
He was given a twoyear community order with a 40-day rehabilitation activity requirement, a two-month curfew, ordered to sign the sex offenders register for five years and given a fiveyear sexual harm prevention order.
Sentencing, Judge Sara Dodd said: “It’s clear that your sexual interest in children is long-standing. There was an incident in 2014 when you downloaded such an image and that’s what brought the police to your door.
“The images of category A are deeply disturbing. The children are very young. Some of them are clearly in pain and distress.
“People like you, even though you don’t take the pictures and are not the one raping those children, are responsible because if there wasn’t a market then this abuse would not take place.
“I accept your remorse and shame is genuine and you have taken very positive steps to address your offending behaviour and your sordid sexual interest in children.”