Wellingborough Photoshop paedophile back in court

A paedophile who photoshopped himself onto child abuse images has had restrictions placed on his freedom for when he is released from prison.

Matthew Salmon, 44, was jailed for 22 months in October after he was arrested over his vile actions in 2018.

He had images of young children being abused but claimed he got no sexual gratification it, instead saying he just enjoyed the thrill of receiving them.

Today (Tuesday) he appeared at Northampton Crown Court after an application to put Salmon, formerly of Kilnway in Wellingborough, under a sexual harm prevention order restricting his freedom to use the internet and devices when he is released from prison.

In a brief hearing, in which Salmon only spoke to confirm his identity, the order was made with no objection and will last for 10 years.

Breaching the order is a criminal offence and can be punished by a further prison sentence.

Her Honour Judge Rebecca Crane said: "This order is necessary for protecting the public."

Previously a court hearing heard that Salmon's phone was seized when he was arrested and more than 8,000 images were found - so many that a forensic analyst reached a threshold and stopped looking at them - including pictures showing babies and young boys and girls being abused.

Some of the pictures had been doctored to superimpose the 44-year-old onto them, which Salmon described as "a hobby".

Police found evidence that he had been joining groups of other people who would share them on Kik messenger and a cloud-based platform. They found messages on Kik which showed he was asking for images of children and found a web page for child abuse bookmarked.

A forensic analyst started categorising the images before reaching a threshold and stopping. Of those categorised 254 were in category A, the most severe, with 93 in category B and 175 in category C.

A total of 16 extreme pornographic images were also recovered, as well as one further prohibited image. Salmon had also distributed a total of 61 videos of child abuse.

When he was interviewed Salmon claimed he had been swapping images of adult pornography and "would skip past the indecent ones".

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