June 2014 Man had level 5 indecent photos of children – Suspended sentence A Driffield man collected more than 1,800 indecent images of young girls and boys on his computer – and searched for photos of children as young as three, a court heard. Shaun Dutton, 26, downloaded and distributed indecent images of children from the internet – including some within the most serious illegal category. He also sent a stranger a message saying he had sex with young boys. Dutton was caught by police when the internet provider AOL reported him for uploading an indecent image. They also suspended his email account. Dutton, of Bracken Road, Driffield, appeared at Hull Crown Court on Monday 16 June for sentence after pleading guilty to four charges relating to his downloading and making of indecent images of children – including one of distributing images. The judge imposed a 12-month suspended prison sentence and said that Dutton must attend the Northumbria Sex Offenders’ Treatment Programme and be supervised for two years. Dutton must also sign on the National Sex Offenders’ Register for 10 years and has been given a Sexual Offences Prevention Order. Crown barrister Stephen Welch said police raided his home in Bracken Road on 21 August 2013. AOL had reported that an indecent image had been uploaded using an email account. Police seized an iPad, two laptops and a Samsung mobile phone. The mobile had three indecent images, a Dell computer had 282 indecent images and Fujitsu laptop had 1,213 incent images. On the Fujitsu, there were 364 images of the “worst” kind including a child being restrained by an adult. Dutton had some images of children aged between three and six years old. He had organized them under folders with name such as “boys” to assist in his later recovery and viewing. In police interview, Dutton admitted becoming interested in images of children at the age of 15. He admitted he had used the laptop and the email. He said he had put “child porn” into an internet search engine out of curiosity and began looking for more and more. He said at the time of his police arrest he was looking at images of children once a week. He now claims to have given up. Mr Welch said records showed at 2.30am on August 21 2013 Dutton had inputted the words “13-year-old girl breasts” in a search engine. Dutton has also used the Kik message application to communicate with like-minded people. Barrister Paul Norton, mitigating, said: “His parents are in court. They are naturally very shocked and upset, but are very supportive. He has contacted the Lucy Faithful charity and his mother has paid for him to start a course. “It is accepted that the offences cross the custody threshold, but the level of distribution was very limited. He sent an image from his phone to his own email account. That led to AOL shutting down his email account. He did plead guilty at the first opportunity and sentencing guidelines now say that there if there is a significant hope that rehabilitation may occur, it could be considered before custody. “He has a significant hearing disability, which would make him a vulnerable prisoner.” Sentencing Judge Michael Mettyear told Dutton: “The fact that you, and others like you like, view such images, makes it worthwhile that other abuse people these children. You are indirectly creating this abuse. That is why the courts consider a custodial sentence and the message must go out. Some of the images show the sexual indignity perpetrated on these young children is quite upsetting and disgusting. The view I have from the pre-sentence report, is you are an isolated and lonely young man who is still young. You have even been referred to as naïve. “Before I read the report, I had come to the conclusion you would receive a prison sentence.” . Before leaving court, Judge Mettyear warned him: “This morning I had been thinking of sending you to prison. You have been lucky.”