NEWTON AYCLIFFE MAN'S 'RECKLESS' SEARCH FOR PORNOGRAPHY LED TO CHILD IMAGE DOWNLOADS
An offshore company project manager’s “reckless” online searches for adult pornography also led to downloads of illicit child abuse imagery, a court was told.When Jas Matharoo’s mobile phone was searched after his arrest in December 2021, it was found 337 indecent images of children had been downloaded onto it, over the previous 21 months.
Teesside Crown Court heard that 131 were in the most serious category, six of them in video form.
Caroline McGurk, prosecuting, said there was also a single image classed as of extreme pornography, featuring an act of bestiality.
Although the extreme pornography count was previously admitted by the defendant, he only changed his pleas and admitted the child abuse image charges on the day the case was due to go to trial, in June this year.
He submitted a basis of plea which was largely accepted by the Crown and Judge Jo Kidd said there was no need for a trial of issue.
Miss McGurk told the sentencing hearing that on the day of his arrest when his phone was seized, in December 2021, and later, after the illicit images were discovered, Matharoo made “no comment” to police questions.
Following the downloads the defendant was said to have stored two of the images in a secure folder and screen shot four others, also placing them in a secure folder.
Miss McGurk said the defendant’s admissions were made on the basis that at the relevant time he was, “a heavy user of pornography and would download, ‘en-masse’.” He claimed that never at any time did he search for images of children, as all his internet searches were intended to find adult imagery, but in the course of those searches he came across images featuring children, nearly all of which he deleted.
He conceded, however, that in the searches for adult pornography he was, “reckless”.
Matharoo said he took the screen shots intending to report them as child exploitation material, but he did not get around to doing so.
The indecent images mainly featured female children aged between two and 13.
The 32-year-old defendant, of Shafto Way, Newton Aycliffe, was said to be of previous good character.
