Revealed: Face of 'disturbing' Shropshire 70-year-old caught sharing sick images of children
This is the face of a "disturbing" Shropshire 70-year-old who was jailed for sharing sick images of children.
Robert Gates was jailed at Shrewsbury Crown Court last week, after pleading guilty to two charges of making indecent images of children, and two counts of distributing indecent photos of children.
The court heard Gates was actually serving a suspended sentence at the time of the offences, but could not help himself when discussing disgusting abuse with a fellow pervert online.
Gates was given two year jail sentence, suspended for two years, at Derby Crown Court in November 2024.
That came after he had admitted three counts of making indecent photos of children, and three counts of distributing indecent images of children.
Kevin Jones, prosecuting, told the Shrewsbury court that in August police in West Mercia had been alerted by colleagues in the Metropolitan Police that Gates had been in contact with another person who they had arrested for sharing images of children.
The court heard that Gates had been using the username 'Kob' to converse with the other person.
Mr Jones said the conversation was "extremely highly sexualised" and involved talk about the sexual abuse of children.
The court was told that Gates had told the other person that he had actually abused children.
Mr Jones said that Gates had sent two category B images and two category C images to the account.
Gates was sentenced to a total of 24 months in prison - 12 months for the recent offences, and 12 months of his previous suspended sentence.
PC Ellie Williams, from Shropshire’s protecting vulnerable people team, has welcomed the sentence saying: "Gates is a deeply disturbing individual with a clear interest in the sexual abuse of children.
"Having previously avoided prison, he has now rightly received a two‑year custodial sentence for his actions.
"Gates' sickening offending demonstrates a shocking disregard for the harm and trauma his behaviour inflicts on young victims."
