A paedophile who was found with dozens of indecent images of children on his phone after a random police search has been spared jail.
Michael Wells, 27, a benefit claimant from Thirsk, was found with the sordid images after going into Northallerton Police Station to sign paperwork as per the requirements of a sexual-harm-prevention order following a previous conviction for sexual activity with an underage girl, York Crown Court heard.
Prosecutor Emily Jenkins said that police at the station used special powers under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act to search Wells during the signing of the paperwork.
This piece of legislation allows police to search an individual if they believe they may have incriminating evidence on them.
They seized Wells’s mobile phone on which they found 69 indecent images of children which he had found on the internet over a four-day period in April last year.
Of those illicit photos, 19 were rated Category A, the worst kind of such material. There were also 21 Category B images and 29 Category C files.
Ms Jenkins said that Wells had used an internet search engine to actively look for illegal images of minors.
Wells, of Hambleton View, was charged with three counts of making or downloading indecent images of children. The three counts represented each category or level of depravity.
He admitted the offences and appeared for sentence at the Crown Court yesterday (October 28).
Ms Jenkins said that Wells had a previous conviction from 2020 for sexual activity with a girl under 13 years of age when he was 20 years’ old.
For that offence, he received an 18-month prison sentence, was placed on the sex-offenders’ register for 10 years and made subject to a 10-year sexual-harm-prevention order (SHPO).
Wells was still subject to the sexual-harm order when he went into the police station to sign paperwork pertaining to the order in June last year after police received information that he had uploaded indecent images of children to the internet.
Ms Jenkins said the children depicted in the images were between 10 and 17 years’ old. There were a “large number of different victims”.
She said that forensic analysis of Wells’s phone revealed that he had “searched online for illegal images of children”.
Defence barrister Eleanor Mitten said that Wells was currently unemployed but wanted to get back into work.
Judge Simon Hicky told Wells: “You clearly have an unhealthy and illegal interest in looking at under-age children.”
However, he said he was prepared to give Wells another chance to avoid jail through rehabilitation, principally because of his young age.
Wells was given a 10-month prison sentence, but this was suspended for 18 months.
He was made to sign on the sex-offenders’ register for another 10 years and made subject to a new 10-year sexual-harm-prevention order to curb his online activities.
During the suspension period, Wells will have to complete a rehabilitation programme under the auspices of the Probation Service and a ‘Building Better Choices’ course.
He was ordered to pay £150 costs and a victim surcharge of £187.
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