'Ridiculous' Leeds pervert said friends planted child-abuse video on his iPhone

Asim Javed’s iPhone was analysed by police after he was arrested for an unrelated matter back in March, 2020, when they found the three-minute video, which showed a boy as young as five being abused.

It was shown that he had the illegal video for almost a year, and that it had been forwarded on to one of his contacts. Leeds Crown Court heard that the 29-year-old attended the station for a voluntary interview where he gave a prepared statement.

He claimed friends had borrowed his phone and it was possible that they were responsible for sending the video. He refused to answer further questions by officers.

Javed, of Banstead Street East, Harehills, pleaded not guilty to distributing the video and a trial date was set, before being re-arranged for September this year. During a preliminary hearing earlier this year he changed his plea to guilty.

Little mitigation was offered by his barrister Christopher Dunn, who said: “He finally saw sense and abandoned the ridiculous suggestion that somebody else had been involved.”

Judge Ray Singh told Javed: “It would have been in your best interests to admit it at the time, but you chose not to. You were trying to divert blame from yourself. It was for your personal, sexual gratification.”

He gave Javed 21 months’ jail, suspended for two years, and 20 rehabilitation days. He put him on the sex offenders register for 10 years, and gave him a sexual harm prevention order (SHPO) to limit his internet use.