Locations
Orford, Warrington, Cheshire, WA2
Description
Riccardo Gargiulo, of Orford, has been given a THIRD chance, having been spared jail twice before including after he was caught with almost three million depraved images of child sex abuse.
The 55-year-old has again been caught possessing such vile images, and he also engaged in sex chats under an online pseudonym without informing the authorities, which he is banned from doing.
Despite police knowing about all this, there was an unexplained 17-month delay before the case was presented for the defendant to be charged meaning a judge felt a suspended sentence was appropriate punishment.
Gargiulo appeared before Liverpool Crown Court on Tuesday to be sentenced on charges of possessing indecent images of children and two counts of making them.
He also breached his sexual harm prevention order (SHPO) and his sex offender registry requirements, with both having been imposed on him for previous relevant offending.
Paul Blasbery, prosecuting, explained how in November 2021, Cheshire Police received intelligence from the National Crime Agency linked to the defendants home address in Warrington.
A warrant was executed on April 5, 2022, and during a search of the property, officers seized 12 electronic devices, which were sent away for analysis.
A report was produced on September 24 that year detailing how 11 of the devices did not contain any incriminating material.
However, a black Asus Nexus tablet computer was found to contain 15 indecent images of children.
Three of them, showing girls aged between 11 and 14, were graded as category A the most severe grading involving child rape.
The remaining 12 were judged to be category C, but these involved girls as young as 10 years of age.
Gargiulo has two previous convictions for seven offences, the first of which saw him sentenced to 10 months in prison suspended for two years in September 2018.
This came after he was caught with nearly three million indecent images of children as part of an extensive collection, involving children aged as young as nine and amassed over a period of five years.
Police had previously raided his home in August 2017, with a laptop and hard drives seized from the property.
Officers were unable to analyse all of the 2.9million images found due to the sheer number, and instead looked at a sample.
Gargiulo, described as an isolated and lonely man, had also bookmarked a Russian website well-known for containing indecent images of children on his internet browser.
He was also ordered to sign the sex offender register for 10 years and abide by the terms of a SHPO for the same period of time.