June 2012

Christchurch estate agent jailed over child sex images

A FAILED Christchurch estate agent has been jailed for 16 months for viewing and distributing extreme child abuse images.

Mark Reed, 34, downloaded sick images and videos of children featuring animals, gang rape and sex toys, Bournemouth Crown Court heard.

Reed was foiled by a Metropolitan Police investigation that traced his perverse internet activity back to his parents’ home at Stony Lane in Burton.

Officers arriving to search the house found stacks of gross images involving naked children aged from just three to 13.

Reed told police he had been hooked on cocaine and looking at images of children for around three or four years before his arrest last March.

Reed – who pleaded guilty to the charges – showed no emotion as he sat in the dock.

His parents sat in the gallery, their heads in their hands, as details of his collection were read out.

Things had started to go wrong when he racked up a debt to his parents trying to buy out a business partner, said Mr Brian Sharman Sentencing, Judge Roger Jarvis said: “One wonders whether you ever on occasion stopped to think about the life these children must be suffering.

“You should do that and you will have plenty of chance to do that in the future.”

Reed’s jail terms of 16 months for distributing level 4 and 5 images, 12 months for distributing and making level 3 and 4 images, three months for level 2 images, 10 weeks for level 1 images and two months for extreme images, will run concurrently.

On release, he will go on the sex offenders’register for 10 years and be disqualified from working with children.