A PERVERT who downloaded more than five hours of ‘repugnant’ child abuse has been given a suspended prison sentence. Elliot Wing watched the footage of children, as young as four-months-old, being horrifically sexually abused, Teesside Crown Court heard.
The 22-year-old was arrested in April this year when his deviant online activities were brought to the attention of the police.
Following a raid on his Billingham home, officers recovered 136 Category A files; 84 Category B files; and 50 Category C files; which had been stored on his iPhone and laptop. Philip Morley, prosecuting, said: “The most serious of the images, Class A, there was a mixture of still and moving images. There was a total of 131 videos which provided five hours and 40 minutes of footage. “Some of the footage was extreme in nature, depicting sexual acts with a four-five month old baby.”
Mr Morley said there was a large number of victims involved in Wing’s perverted downloads. The court heard how Wing started sharing images with other people using an online app but denied having a sexual interest in children. Wing, of Bedale Avenue, Billingham, pleaded guilty to three charges of possession of indecent images of children. Nigel Soppitt, in mitigation, said his client had never been in trouble with the police before his arrest this year.
He said: “This young man has a fairly exemplary character apart from this huge stain on his life. “He made a full confession to the police and pleaded guilty at the magistrates’ court.” Mr Soppitt said Wing was a troubled young man who had left his studies in Manchester and returned home. He added: “He is deeply, deeply ashamed and can offer no explanation or justification for these repugnant images he has viewed – he knows nothing justifies that at all.”
Judge Jonathan Carroll sentenced Wing to eight months in custody, suspended for two years after dismissing his claim to get ‘no sexual pleasure from the images’. “It was deeply unpleasant and offensive material with extreme elements, a large number of victims and some extremely young victims – which is clearly and aggravating factor, as is the obvious pain of some of the children,” he said.
“Sometimes, an offender such as you, who is sat at the end of a computer think they are detached from what is going on, that you yourself are not responsible for the abuse that those young children were suffering. If that was what you were thinking then you were wrong. Every single image is of a real child, really suffering profound and serious, damaging sexual abuse. The fact that people like you seek out this material generates the market for the further production of this repugnant type of material."
“Therefore you are directly and personally playing a part in the sexual abuse of very young children – you simply cannot wash your hands of it.” Wing was also ordered to carry out 120 hours of unpaid work
