Hartlepool internet pervert left judge shocked after admitting to '˜a catalogue of sexual offending'

Maintenance worker Carl Hutchinson, 29, from Greatham, was also ordered to serve another 12 months on licence when he is released and put on the Sex Offender’s Register for life.

The mother of one of the children said that she felt sick to the stomach when police told her what he had done.

Police tracked him down during routine surveillance of Twitter and Facebook activity.

Judge Shaun Morris told smartly dressed Hutchinson at Teesside Crown Court: “You have pleaded guilty to a catalogue of sexual offending which shocked me, and I take some shocking.”

One of the original photos contained three children and Hutchinson and another paedophile who he was in regular contact with on the internet superimposed sick sexual images on the pictures.

The judge said: “They are out there now for the rest of time.

”There were two families and you obtained pictures of their children and you put them deliberately on Facebook and, with the assistance of one of your paedophile friends, turning what was a happy family scene into one of debauchery.

“And you rewarded your friend by sending him pictures from your library.”

The judge added: “It does not get much worse in my book.”

Prosecutor Harry Hadfield said that one photo had been taken at Seaton Carew.

He said the aggravating features of the case were that that most of the child porn which Hutchinson distributed on the internet was at the most serious level Category A, and it was an incitement to other perverts.

It featured children as young as two, with one video lasting 50 minutes.

Mr Hadfield said Hutchinson had handled 145 images at Category A, 107 at B and 135 at C, and the majority of the girls were aged four to eight.

William Byrne, defending, said Hutchinson suffered from the delusion that what was happening online was not in the real world.

He said Hutchinson was of previous good character and he had co-operated entirely throughout the investigation.

Hutchinson, of Greatham but whose court record address was Gloucester Road, Bristol, pleaded guilty to three charges of encouraging the commission of offences, three of distributing indecent photographs, two of making indecent photographs, and one each of possession of extreme pornography and having an obscene article for publication.

The judge also made a Sexual Harm Prevention Order restricting Hutchinson’s use of the internet and contact with children, which he said would protect the public as much as he could.