A man who discussed with fellow paedophiles what he would like to do to young children, and shared images of them, has been jailed.

Durham Crown Court heard that police went to Stephen Walker’s home on August 4 after receiving intelligence he was distributing indecent images of children.

Christopher Bevan, prosecuting, told the court that the defendant said he was sorry and he was arrested, before various electrical devices were seized.

A laptop, a hard-drive, a memory card and a mobile phone were taken away and examined, with offending images and videos in all three categories of severity discovered.

Read more: County Durham man had more than 1,200 indecent images of children

Mr Bevan said: “On the mobile phone, officers discovered messages that had been sent to two users and category A images had been distributed.”

The court was told some of the images in Walker’s possession featured children as young as one-year-old and in apparent distress.

When interviewed Walker made admissions but said he did not know why he had done it.

The court heard Walker was also having online conversations in which he mentioned children in his area and what he would like to do to them.

Walker, 54, of St Godric’s Drive, West Rainton, admitted distributing indecent images of a child, three counts of possessing indecent photographs of a child and possessing extreme pornographic images.

Amrit Jandoo, in mitigation, told the court: “He’s 54 and there’s very little that can be said about the type of conversations he’s had on the internet and the images he has accessed.”

Read more: True extent of indecent image viewer's offending may never be known

Mr Jandoo said his client suffered with long-standing depression and other mental health issues, as well as from stress at work.

“But this is, in no way, intended to minimise the level of offending that has gone on for some time.”

Mr Jandoo said the defendant “dipped into and out of” gathering images and the conversations with other like-minded individuals.

“It wasn’t a persistent thing and, when confronted, he made admissions, assisting the officers with all the material like memory cards and digital devices handed over.

“He abruptly made admissions of guilt in two interviews, and there was a timely guilty plea at the lower court.”

Mr Jandoo said: There’s documentation of him trying to get help for his mental health problems and he’s taken steps to begin to tackle the issues to address this appalling level of conversation he was involved in on the internet.

“He recognises there is a deep-seated problem as to why he has involved himself in these conversations and why he has accessed these images.”

Judge Jo Kidd told Walker: “You have been looking at very serious images of the sexual abuse of children from as young as one to about 11 for a period of six to eight years.

“The extent of your interest is clear from the significantly large number of images recovered from your devices, 574 of them in category A, some moving, featuring children showing discernible distress by way of their age and great vulnerability.”

The judge said the defendant’s discussions about his sexual preferences for children aged eight and nine, but as young as three or four, and what he would like to do with them, was, “of particular concern.”

Imposing a two-year prison sentence, Judge Kidd also made Walker subject of restrictions under a Sexual Harm Prevention Order, as well as the requirement to register as a sex offender, both for ten years.

Read next:

              Ex-military school pupil downloaded hundreds of images of child abuse

              North Yorkshire pervert targeted young children for indecent images

              'Bored' ex-JP collected thousands of indecent child images from the internet

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