A LITTLEDEAN man has been ordered to complete 60 hours of unpaid work after admitting he downloaded three indecent videos of children and also had an image of a cat being abused.

Judge Ian Lawrie QC told Bruce Carrington that normally a suspended sentence would have been imposed but the case was sent to court after a caution given to him was reviewed.

The judge said the caution was the correct verdict and was "baffled" as why magistrates who heard the case thought it necessary to send the 32-year-old Ministry of Defence worker to the Crown Court for sentence.

Prosecutor Ieuan Callaghan told Gloucester Crown Court on Thursday (February 3) that police received intelligence from the National Crime Agency that in July 2019 an indecent image of a child had been uploaded to Facebook from an IP address in Littledean.

"An investigation led to police arriving at Bruce Carrington’s home address at 7am on December 11, 2020.

"He explained to the officers that he was sent the material in a Whatsapp group and that he tried to open it, but couldn’t," said Mr Callaghan.

"Carrington stated that shortly afterwards both his WhatsApp and Facebook accounts were shut down by the tech companies."

The police seized six devices from the property and analysis Carrington’s phone and computer showed them to have contained two category A videos, one category C video of indecent images of children and one video of extreme pornography - featuring sexual abuse of a cat.

Mr Callaghan said: "The videos featured children aged between three and six in category A and a girl aged between 10 and 12 in category C.

"The analysis reveals that Carrington downloaded these images onto his computer between August 4 and 5, 2019 and all of them originated from Whatsapp. It appears that Carrington had backed up his phone at some point using his computer.

"The two category A videos were found in a folder ’Whatsapp videos’ and the category C image was located in a folder labelled as private. These images were discovered among some 63,000 photographs and videos of adult pornography, which were not illegal content.

"In interview Carrington believed that he had deleted the offending images, but the shadow of these images remained on the equipment.

"Carrington admitted he had moved the category C image to the private folder. He believed that the category A videos came from a time when he was on the Discord social media platform - a period when the group he was socialising with had gone ’dark’ and were dealing with images of children.

"Carrington also revealed that the bestiality video came from a contact on Whatsapp, who is based overseas."

Alistair Haggerty, defending, said that what differentiates this case from many others is that Carrington did not go deliberately searching for these images.

He added: "Carrington received these three videos and the bestiality images through social media and the dark web. He wasn’t looking for this material."

Judge Lawrie responded: "Most sex offenders of this nature are in denial over their actions. Carrington has admitted his guilt at a very early stage, which in cases like this, is very unusual."

Mr Haggerty added: "This case has taken a long time to come to court. He was arrested in December 2020 but wasn’t charged for almost a year.

"The effect of these proceedings has had a substantial effect on Carrington, who works for the Ministry of Defence at a warehouse.

"The ripple effect over the past two-and-a-half years has had significant effect on his life.

"Press reports of his earlier court appearances, has meant that this job is now in jeopardy. He now also suffers from depression."

Carrington pleaded guilty pleas to charges of making two videos category A (the most serious) containing indecent images of children between August 4, 2019 and December 13, 2020 and one movie at category C. He also admitted possessing an image of extreme pornography involving sexual abuse of a cat.

Judge Lawrie told Carrington: "Sex offending of this nature and at this level normally ends up with a suspended prison sentence.

"However, I understand that discussions were had about you receiving a caution for this offence, but when the case was reviewed a prosecution was preferred. I believe a caution would have been the right course of action.

"I am equally baffled as to why the lower court sent this case to the crown court for sentencing. In my opinion the justices had ample options for sentencing.

"We are where we are today in court. You I believe have learnt your lesson from all this. I understand you are remorseful about what you have done. I have also received a number of testimonials on your behalf, that show that you are a much better person than what your offending suggests.

"I’m hoping that you will retain your job following this hearing as I am only sentencing you to a 12 month community order which includes you carrying out 60 hours of unpaid work."

The judge ordered Carrington to pay court costs of £435 and a victim surcharge of £90. The judge ordered for the depravation of Carrington’s phone and his computer’s hard drive and for him to sign the sex offenders register for the next five years.