Police criticised as 'porn addict' teen who posted child sex abuse pictures to Instagram is sentenced four years later
A magistrate hit out at police over “reprehensible” delays after it took four years to charge a teenager who had child sex abuse images.
Alan Parkhurst was critical of officers as he and his fellow magistrates presided over a case where a 15-year-old had uploaded indecent images to Instagram, but was not prosecuted until he was 19.
Telford Magistrates Court was told how police were alerted to child sex abuse images being uploaded to social media in July 2022.
Officers attended his address on November 4 of that year. They seized a Samsung phone and a laptop but did not arrest him.
The devices were examined and were discovered to contain 79 category A images, depicting the most serious and depraved kind of child sex abuse, as well as 30 of category B and 26 of category C. The teen was also in possession of 11 prohibited images of a child.
The stash of indecent material was amassed between July 2021 and November 2022.
He was 15 at the time the police seized the items but was not charged until this year, when he turned 19.
