Hartlepool man, 44, sentenced at Teesside Crown Court for having indecent images of children and extreme pornography

Simon Lott, 44, was found to have three indecent images of children and three extreme pornographic images on a computer tower after police attended his Hartlepool home in May 2021 and took a number of devices away to be analysed.

Teesside Crown Court heard police originally did not detect any indecent images, but three were identified after they were looked at again by another expert officer.

Three were identified as class C images, the least explicit category by law.

Lott pleaded guilty to charges of making indecent photographs of children and possessing extreme pornography.

It was on a basis that the images were contained within a larger file of adult pornography that Lott had downloaded and were not obvious to him.

He had a previous conviction, also for making indecent photographs of children, from 2015.

Martin Scarborough, mitigating, said the latest images did not feature any child nudity.

Mr Scarborough added: “There’s no suggestion he was trying to meet children or that his offending would progress to contact offences.”

Judge Howard Crowson, sentenced Lott, of Queensland Road, Hartlepool, to an 18-month community order including having to complete a sex offender treatment programme.

Judge Crowson said: “This isn’t the first time you have been before a court for this kind of offending and I think if you ever appear before a court again with indecent images you can nearly certainly walk down the stairs [to custody].”

Lott will also be on the sex offenders register for the next five years.