Locations
Colley Court, Monkton, Pembroke, Wales, SA71
Description
A former security guard took an indecent photo of a young girl and sent it to fellow paedophiles, a court has heard.
Graham Thomas also downloaded more than 1,200 films and pictures of children and babies being sexually abused, and engaged in online chats about his sexual fantasies with kids.
Sending him to prison, a judge described the images - some of which showed children as young as 18 months - as "vile" and "simply stomach-churning".
Craig Jones, prosecuting, told Swansea Crown Court that Thomas was arrested in November 2020 when police executed a search warrant at the Pembrokeshire house he shared with his mother. The 58-year-old's laptops, phones, and tablet devices were seized, and a preliminary examination revealed the presence of indecent material.
A full search of the machines uncovered a total of 1,244 indecent images and videos, including 298 Category A images which show the most serious kinds of abuse including rape, as well as 10 extreme pornographic images. Some of the children in the pictures and videos were estimated to be aged as young as 18 months. Four of the Category C images found on Thomas' devices were photographs he had taken.
Officers also found online chats where the defendant had discussed his child sex fantasies with like-minded individuals, and discovered he had shared a small number of indecent images with other paedophiles.
Mr Jones said one of the images distributed by the defendant was a "tribute style" photograph which involved an indecent picture of a young girl where you could see up her skirt - this picture was displayed on a laptop screen, and the defendant had then placed his erect penis next to the screen and taken a photograph of it.
Graham Thomas, formerly of Hakin, Milford Haven, but now of Colley Court, Monkton, Pembroke, had previously pleaded guilty to possession of indecent images of Categories A, B and C, distributing indecent images, taking indecent images, and possession of extreme pornographic images when he appeared in the dock for sentencing. He has previous convictions "of some antiquity" for offences including drink-driving and battery.
John Allchurch, for Thomas, said the defendant understood the offences he had committed were not "victimless", and said he was genuinely remorseful for what he had done. He said his client had worked as a security guard at an oil refinery and had spent a lot of time alone - this led him to develop an interest in online pornography which then led to more extreme material.
He said following his arrest Thomas effectively had "lost his family, lost his friends, lost his house, and lost his standing in the community".
Judge Paul Thomas QC told the defendant that for a period of five or six years he had been involved in viewing "vile" and "simply stomach-churning" material on the internet. He said the children in the images found on Thomas devices were real children somewhere in the world being horribly abused so that people like the defendant could get sexual gratification by masturbating to the pictures and videos.
Following the sentencing guidelines and with the required one-third discount for his guilty pleas the judge sentenced the defendant to 28 months in prison. He will serve up to half that period in custody before being released on licence to serve the remainder in the community. Thomas will be a registered sex offender for the next 10 years, and was made the subject of a sexual harm prevention order for the same length of time.