Description
A depraved man who left people “traumatised” by handing out graphic images of children on trains has avoided prison.
Perverted Steve Blackthorne, 38, of Winchester, has been sentenced to two years in prison, suspended for two years, after pleading guilty to making and distributing indecent photographs/ pseudo-photographs of a child. Blackthorne will be put behind bars if he offends again in the two year timeframe.
He has been placed on the Sex Offenders Register for 10 years, and issued a Sexual Harm Prevention Order for 10 years. Investigating officer, Detective Constable Phil James, said: “Such was the level of Blackthorne’s depravity that the images he had collated left those who inadvertently happened upon them deeply traumatised.”
Winchester Crown Court heard a train guard was handed six pages of A4 sheets by a passenger left by a men who got off the train at Basingstoke on January 23, 2022. The pages contained horrific indecent graphic images of children - 16 Category A pictures (the most severe), five Category B and 16 Category C.
Court heard the train guard was left in tears, who reported it to British Transport Police officers at Southampton Central railway station. On January 31 of that year, a cleaner found another batch of images when he pulled down a folding table. They were left horrified and upset, reporting it to his manager.
Those pages contained 16 Category A, five Category B and 16 Category C indecent images of children. CCTV footage found Blackthorne left the printouts on the train. Officers arrested him on March 14 at Basingstoke railway station.
His mobile phone contained 60 Category A, 27 Category B and 81 Category C images, with further pictures being discovered on the laptop he was carrying. Another portable computer was found at his address, containing even more sickening images.
Blackthorne admitted during a police interview that he printed out the images out at work from a work device. DC James added: “No one in their right mind would ever willingly choose to see these sickening images. Blackthorne showed no shame in his perversion even transferring the images to a work computer so he could print them out at work to look at at his leisure.”