TAXI DRIVER PLEADS GUILTY TO POSSESSION OF CHILD ABUSE IMAGES

A man named Stephen Borsellotti, aged 59, from Church, has admitted to possessing indecent images of children. He downloaded these images after joining a social media group chat on the Kik Messenger app, which included victims as young as eight or nine years old. According to court reports, police attended his home on Church Street in September 2018 following information received about potential sharing of indecent images on the social networking site Tumblr. During the search, officers recovered seven Category A images, nine Category B images, and ten Category C images from his mobile phone. Some of these images depicted children in pain and grimacing. Borsellotti claimed that a link to these illegal images was shared by another person in the Kik group, which he clicked on. When interviewed by the probation service, he admitted that his partner had previously destroyed his phone after discovering other indecent images some years earlier. Borsellotti pleaded guilty to three counts of making indecent images of children and was sentenced to a two-year community order with various restrictions, including signing the sex offenders register for five years and a five-year sexual harm prevention order. The judge acknowledged the disturbing nature of the images, stating, “The images of category A are deeply disturbing. The children are very young. Some of them are clearly in pain and distress. People like you, even though you don’t take the pictures and are not the one raping those children, are responsible because if there wasn’t a market then this abuse would not take place.” The court noted that Borsellotti showed remorse and had taken steps to address his offending behavior by engaging with charity programs.