A pervert caught with "sickening" indecent images of children for a third time has been jailed in tears.
Michael Elder was was convicted of having child abuse images in 2010 and 2012 but failed to learn his lesson. When officers attended his home to check he was complying with a sexual offences prevention order, they found he was at it again.
On a mobile phone, there were more than 200 photographs and videos of children aged between four and 15, Newcastle Crown Court. Now the 43-year-old, of Raby Gate, Byker, Newcastle, has been locked up.
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Judge Tim Gittins told him: "Every possession and viewing of these sickening images is a further abuse of the vulnerable children who have been the subject of not just the photographs being taken but knowing those images are out there being viewed by people like you. You don't seem to have learned your lesson. You need to understand there are consequences to the recurrence of of such offences."
Police attended his home in November 2018 and a subsequent examination of his phone discovered 32 images and 18 videos of the most serious, category A type, 14 category B images and 27 videos and 120 category C images and two videos.
Elder pleaded guilty to three counts of making indecent images and was jailed for eight months. He was also given a ten year sexual harm prevention order and will be on the sex offenders register for the same period.
The court heard Elder has 21 previous convictions, including in February 2010, when he got a community order and sexual harm prevention order for four offences of possessing indecent images. That was later varied to a prison sentence for failing to comply.
In November 2012 he got another community order for possessing indecent images and breaching the sexual offences prevention order. He was also convicted of breaching the sexual offences prevention order in 2019 after his arrest for the latest offences as he had a phone he had failed to declare to police.
John Crawford, defending, said: "He has changed his lifestyle in terms of drinking and his current relationship has been a substantial positive factor for him. Probation believe they can work with him and there's work that can be done with him."
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