SHAUN MARETT JAILED IN JULY 2017 FOR POSSESSING OVER 1,000 INDECENT IMAGES IN THE CITY

In July 2017, Shaun Marett, a 22-year-old sex offender, was sentenced to 15 months in prison after being found with more than 1,000 indecent images of children. Marett claimed that he was conducting an online sting operation to catch paedophiles, asserting that he posed as a young boy online to lure men asking for photos, then threatened to reveal them online as a form of deterrent because he allegedly 'could not stand paedophiles or rapists,' according to the Royal Court.

However, a police investigation uncovered over 1,500 indecent images of children aged between two and 16 on his devices—his laptop and iPod. Of these, 1,023 were unique images, with the remaining being duplicates. The court was told that 164 of the images were classified as the most serious category.

Crown Advocate Richard Pedley informed the court that police analysis of over 4,000 lines of Skype chat involved more than 600 users, revealing that Marett 'requested and encouraged users to send him indecent images of children.' Detective officers also recovered a charred and melted memory stick, which Marett had destroyed, but which still contained more images.

During police interviews, Marett, who had no prior convictions, maintained that he was operating an online deterrent to identify paedophiles and claimed that he was unknowingly sent indecent images during this process. Ultimately, Marett admitted to 11 counts of inciting others to send indecent images of children, one count of distributing indecent images, and two counts of making or downloading such images.

He was also sentenced to be on the Sex Offenders’ Register for five years. The case was heard before Jurats Paul Nicolle and Robert Christensen.