Locations
Rowan Court, Spennymoor, County Durham, DL16
Description
A County Durham paedophile who branded himself a "proper perv" has been caged for making and distributing child abuse images.
Lee Aston was found in possession of sickening indecent images when police went to his home on September 15, 2020.
The 40-year-old had vile images and videos stored on a mobile phone and committed the offences between October 2018 and September 2020.
Aston appeared at Durham Crown Court on Tuesday to be sentenced for charges of making and distributing indecent images.
The court heard that police went to his home and seized a Sony mobile phone, which was later found to contain child abuse images and videos.
Aston had 11 images and 56 videos in category A, 49 images and nine videos in category C, and 13 images and 10 videos in category B.
Aston, who had no previous convictions, had also distributed some images and videos to other paedophiles via the Telegram app.
The court heard that conversations were also discovered, where Aston had branded himself a "proper perv".
When arrested, he admitted what he'd done and said he would access the material at home and that some depicted children between the ages of "four and five-years-old".
He also admitted sending abuse images via social media and said what he was doing made him "feel sick".
John Nixon, mitigating, said Aston, of Rowan Court, Spennymoor, had offered an "early guilty plea" and had shown "remorse and regret".
He said when young, Aston's parents had both died and he now suffered from depression and had alcohol issues.
Mr Nixon added that Aston was at a "low risk" of reoffending and had "worked all his life".
Judge James Adkin, the Recorder of Durham, jailed Aston for 18 months and made him subject of a 10-year sexual harm prevention order.
He will also be on the sex offenders' register for 10 years.