May 2016 Darlington paedophile sobs as he’s sent to prison A PAEDOPHILE who has been caught four times with indecent photographs of children sobbed as he was jailed for a year yesterday. A judge told Mark Jackson that his inability or unwillingness to learn from his mistakes meant he had no choice but to lock him up. Jackson wept in the dock at Teesside Crown Court as Judge Stephen Ashurst told him: “You have an unhealthy interest in children.” The 31-year-old, from Darlington, posed as a mother in online chats with a paedophile and offered to provide indecent pictures of his fictional son. The court heard that he also made internet searches for things such as “incest” and engaged in many sick Skype conversations. His barrister, Scott Smith, said some of what was being said was just fantasy and Jackson had never committed a “contact” offence. He admitted Jackson’s offending was aggravated by his perverted history, but said he had suffered a troubled past. Mr Smith said he had been bullied at school, had low self-esteem, turned to alcohol and had a “lowered resistance to falling into criminality”. Judge Ashurst told Jackson that “very little” progress had been made when he was put on treatment programmes in the past. In 2008, he was cautioned after being found with indecent images, but the following year he was prosecuted for doing the same thing. Prosecutor David Crook said he was in trouble again the next year for having similar pictures, and was jailed in 2010 for inciting a child to engage in sexual activity he could watch on a webcam on his computer. Police searched Jackson’s home after investigators working for the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Service monitored his internet activity. Just eight sexual abuse images were found on his range of tablets and computers, but traces of “worrying” chat-logs were discovered, said Mr Crook. In one conversation, pretending to be a mum with a young son, Jackson asked another sex beast if they could swap pictures and videos of abuse. Jackson, of Eastmount Road, Darlington, admitted possessing indecent images of children at an earlier court hearing. He will also be on the sex offenders’ register for the next ten years, and will have his internet activity restricted by a Sexual Harm Prevention Order. During a 31-month sentence for the incitement crime and while on a suspended term for an earlier images offence, Jackson was put on a treatment programme. But Judge Ashurst told him: “Very little progress has been made in helping you to contain your unhealthy interest in children. “It is clear that what you were doing as engaging in conversations on Skype with like-minded people, pretending to be a woman. “Worryingly, you were trying to convey to others you were the mother of young children and you were prepared to engage in discussions about putting your so-called children in front of a webcam for the benefit of others. “The worrying aspect is despite everything that has happened to you in the past, you have not learned from your mistakes.” April 2010 Mark Jackson, of Darlington, jailed A MAN who exchanged intimate texts and images with a vulnerable 14-year-old girl was yesterday jailed for 31 months. Mark John Robert Jackson was described as a predator who took advantage of initial contact with the girl at a church service. Jackson, 25, exchanged numbers with the girl and began contacting her only three weeks after he was given a suspended jail sentence for downloading indecent images of children from the internet. He was previously given a police caution for possessing indecent material. Mark Giuliani, prosecuting at Durham Crown Court, said Jackson began to introduce a “sexual element” to the text exchanges, persuading the girl to send intimate images of her to him, while he replied with one of his own. He persuaded her to perform an intimate sex act on herself while on the phone to him, while he “responded in kind”. Jackson, of Ridsdale Street, Darlington, admitted inciting a girl under 16 to engage in sexual activity, plus two counts of making indecent photographs of a child. Scott Smith, for Jackson, said the offences began before he started a sex offenders’ treatment programme. Imposing a 22-month jail sentence, and adding the ninemonths suspended sentence, Judge Christopher Prince said Jackson had “a complete sexual preoccupation with teenage girls”. He said: “You fail to accept your behaviour was unacceptable and do not view this girl as a victim, while considering her a willing sexual participant. “You must have been fully aware, and, if not, you certainly should have been, that offending like this is only likely to cause harm to a vulnerable young girl like this.” Jackson must sign the Sex Offenders’ Register for life.