Vulnerable man had thousands of indecent images

A“VULNERABLE” 20-yearold man has been sentenced to a three-year community order for downloading and sharing thousands of indecent images of children.

Theodore John, of Cherry Orchard Lane, St George, pleaded guilty in February to downloading tens of thousands of images onto two iPhones, and sharing seven pictures between 2016 and May 2018.

Police first visited John, who is autistic and has been diagnosed with several “complex” mental health conditions, on October 31 when he was still living with his family in Hanham, after they were notified by a police officer in the US that indecent images had been sent from an IP address linked to John’s home.

Avon and Somerset police seized John’s phone, laptop, and PlayStation games console, on which thousands of child abuse images – largely featuring prepubescent girls and boys – were found stored.

Bristol Crown Court heard John said he had simply woken one morning to find thousands of indecent images had been sent to his phone. But investigators found incriminating search terms in the computer’s browser history, as well as graphic file names.

Police returned to visit John in May 2018, and seized another iPhone purchased a week after the police had visited in October.

On it, some 30,000 indecent images were found alongside similarly explicit search terms in the browser history, which showed the photos and videos had been sought out from December 2017, just months after his other devices were collected for investigation.

In mitigation, Tara Wolfe asked recorder Paul Dunkels to consider sentencing John as a young person rather than adult.

She said: “He is an at-risk individual for a number of very complicated reasons, and is vulnerable himself to exploitations due to his complex mental health diagnosis.”

She told the court John, who lives in assisted accommodation, needs five hours’ support a day from staff, who help with basic tasks like cooking and cleaning.

Passing sentence, Mr Dunkels said: “You are not going to prison today,” describing John as “extremely vulnerable in any custodial setting”, and went on to comment on the possibility of John’s rehabilitation and “low risk of reoffending”. He said he took into account the defendant’s lack of emotional maturity.

John was also ordered to do a 40-day accredited programme and 10-day rehabilitation programme. He was also banned for 10 years from owning any device that could access the internet without first registering it with police, and is obliged to allow police entry to his home for the same 10-year period.

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