MARRIED MAN AND DAD FROM HOUGHTON TRADED CHILD ABUSE IMAGES ONLINE
A married man and father from Houghton-le-Spring received a prison sentence after being caught sharing child abuse images online.Scott Francis exchanged photos and videos depicting child abuse, which he obtained through conversations with other offenders on the social media platform Kik, in exchange for material he sought.
Just three minutes before police arrived to arrest him at his home on January 10, 2022, Francis deleted the Kik app from his phone.
Nevertheless, the National Crime Agency, which specializes in tackling organized and cybercrime, already had evidence of his activities.
Francis, living on Bowes Avenue in Houghton, Sunderland, admitted to three charges of distributing indecent images.
The prosecution's case revealed that he shared four videos classified as category A (the most severe), along with two videos labeled category B and two photographs classified as category C.
One of the children depicted in this material may have been as young as four years old.
Prosecutor Antonia Adie explained to Newcastle Crown Court that Francis claimed his use of Kik was for viewing pornographic content and that sometimes indecent images of children appeared in the chats he participated in.
She added that he admitted to forwarding and trading these images within private chats for his own interest in such material.
The police arrived to arrest Francis at 9.05am, having found that he had removed the Kik app from his phone just three minutes earlier.
Judge Christopher Prince sentenced Francis to two years in prison, ordered him to register as a sex offender, and imposed a sexual harm prevention order for ten years.
