Locations
Rhymney Close, Rassau, Ebbw Vale, Gwent, Blaenau Gwent, NP23
Description
A paedophile groomed a 10-year-old girl he met on TikTok before sending her a picture of his penis, a court has heard.
An investigation into that matter led police to finding Thomas Winterson had hundreds of videos of child sexual abuse which he had shared with a like-minded individual, and had visited Russian websites known for hosting indecent images.
Newport Crown Court heard the 34-year-old defendant has a previous conviction for possessing indecent images for which he was given a community order. The bakery worker's barrister told the court Winterson had voluntarily sought help from a charity which works with sex offenders and was motivated to change.
The court heard that Winterson's behaviour came to light after he contacted a 10-year-old girl in the north of England on the video-sharing app TikTok. Pretending to be a 15-year-old boy, the defendant told the child she was pretty and asked if they could chat on Snapchat, offering her money for the popular online game platform Roblox.
The court heard that once on Snapchat Winterson asked the girl for pictures - the girl sent him some photos of herself and he responded by sending her pictures of his erect penis. The girl called Winterson a "paedophile" and told her mother who in turn reported the matter to police.
The court heard that the defendant was identified via the phone number linked to his TikTok account and officers subsequently attended at his house to arrest him and seize his electronic devices.
An examination of Winterson's phone and his online Mega storage account uncovered more than 800 indecent images - the vast majority being videos - including 220 classified as Category A which show the most extreme forms of sexual abuse and rape. The children in the images were aged from around 12 months up to teenagers, and most of the images were in a hidden folder on the iPhone. An image involving "intercourse with a sheep" was also found.