Couple sentenced for sharing child abuse images
Thomas Anderson, 35, and Christopher Ternent, 39, were handed a suspended sentence at York Crown Court
- Published
A couple have avoided prison after they admitted sharing indecent pictures and videos of young boys.
Thomas Anderson, 35, and Christopher Ternent, 39, sent each other nearly 100 category A, B and C images, York Crown Court heard on Wednesday.
Some of the videos portrayed the sexual abuse of children as young as four to six years old.
After pleading guilty at an earlier hearing, they were each handed a nine-month custodial sentence, suspended for 12 months.
Anderson and Ternent were first arrested by North Yorkshire Police in July 2020, when they were living in Harrogate town centre, and the indecent images were found on their mobile phones.
The offending dated back to 2011.
Prosecutor Rachel Landin said chat logs were also uncovered in which the men discussed their "fantasies" in relation to the content.
Judge Sean Morris told the defendants it was "unusual to see what was in the minds of people looking at these images".
"But it is what every paedophile will be thinking," he said.
'Shame and disgust'
Ternent's defence counsel, David Ward, said his client had been on a "slippery slope" with his consumption of pornography.
He had become "more and more isolated" and felt "shame and disgust" at his actions, Mr Ward said.
He added that Ternent had had to take a lower-paying job due to the offences and the couple had been attacked, prompting them to move house and leave the Harrogate area.
Anderson's counsel, Joel Wootton, said his mental health had "fallen off a cliff" since the arrests in 2020.
Anderson described himself as an alcoholic and needs to be cared for by Ternent.
Judge Morris said the case was "ancient history" due to policing backlogs with crime involving technology.
He added that there was "every prospect of rehabilitation", as there had been no further offending in the four years since.
The couple, who are now listed as living in Middlesbrough, were also given a sexual harm prevention order to last five years.
Follow BBC Yorkshire on Facebook, external, X (formerly Twitter), external and Instagram, external. Send your story ideas to yorkslincs.news@bbc.co.uk, external