Kettering paedophile avoids prison over sick images of infants being abused

A paedophile who downloaded images of infants being abused avoided a spell behind bars by the ‘skin of his teeth’.

Steven Patterson was caught with almost 1,000 sick files after a police investigation into an alias he was using online.

When police arrived at his Kettering home he even admitted to officers that he had downloaded some of the vile content that morning.

On Tuesday (September 19) he was handed a suspended prison sentence and put on the sex offender register.

Northampton Crown Court heard police visited the 38-year-old’s address on October 17, 2020, looking for someone called Robbie Smith in connection with indecent images of children on social media sites.

Patterson, of Russell Street, told officers that he was using the alias Robbie Smith and was cautioned.

Prosecutor Claire Fraser said: "He said he last downloaded images of children that morning."

A Dell computer and hard drive were seized and Patterson was interviewed but gave no comment answers.

The forensic examination of his devices then found 12 category A indecent images, 42 in category B and 915 in category C. Those in category A depict the most depraved child sexual abuse.

Ms Fraser said some of the images, which were downloaded between 2015 and 2020, were of infants. An image of a person’s sex act with a dog was also found.

Patterson, who had no previous convictions, later pleaded guilty to making indecent images of children and possessing an extreme pornographic image.

The court heard that sentencing guidelines said the category A images offence he admitted carried a starting point of one year in prison, with a range of between 26 weeks and three years behind bars.

Mitigating, Will Forber-Heyward urged the case for a suspended prison sentence and said Patterson had completed the Stop It Now! programme, run by child sex abuse prevention charity The Lucy Faithfull Foundation.

He added that Patterson had been evicted from his home and had lost his job.

Mr Forber-Heyward said: "He tells me that he wants help. He understands that he has issues that need addressing."

His Honour Judge David Herbert KC said that, after the credit for Patterson’s guilty plea, the sentence would be 14 months in prison.

But he said he had to take into account the protection of the public in the future and the reality was, that if Patterson was jailed, he would soon be back in the community having done very little rehabilitation work. Judge Herbert KC instead ruled that he would suspend the sentence for two years and impose rehabilitation requirements.

Telling Patterson that he had avoided prison by the ‘skin of his teeth’, Judge Herbert KC said: "It's people like you enjoying this material that create a market for it and it's a market that can, and does, cause extreme suffering to the children in these images...something I doubt very much that you thought about at all."

Patterson was ordered to carry out 100 hours of unpaid work and must take part in rehabilitation activities and an accredited programme in relation to sexual offending.

He will be on the sex offender register for 10 years, subject to a sexual harm prevention order for 10 years and must pay costs of £425.