May 2014

Family support worker sentenced over child abuse images

A family support worker from North Yorkshire who was part of a child abuse images ring has been jailed for 32 months.

Teesside Crown Court was told that 30-year-old James Oliver had distributed child abuse images – some showing the rape of young children while bound and gagged – off the Internet to 13 other men.

When police raided his home near Northallerton they discovered more than three thousand images on his computer equipment and mobile phone.

James Oliver was said to use vile and warped terms in discussing his apparent “fantasies” with users of the internet-based telephone network Skype, which included a desire to have sex with a two year-old.

The 30-year-old also obtained a video of a teenager committing a sex act on himself, which he then distributed to others using a messaging facility.

Prosecutor Paul Newcombe told Teesside Crown Court that police also discovered several pairs of pants belonging to the same teenager, which were found in the pockets of his dressing gown at his home.

Oliver, who shielded his face with his hands during proceedings, admitted 11 counts of making indecent photos and six of distributing such images over an 11 month period between January 17 and December 15 last year.

In total, police discovered 3,007 indecent images of children in his possession, carefully stored in computer files with descriptions such as “toddler rape”, together with 71 videos.

Oliver, of Danelaw Gardens, Brompton, Northallerton, had been on remand in custody for the past five months awaiting the outcome of the case and was of previous good character.

He pleaded guilty to six charges of distributing indecent images of children and eleven of making indecent images between January and November last year.

Oliver was ordered to register as a sex offender for life, banned from contact with children and from using the Internet. He had been in jail for five months waiting to be sentenced.