Teen Leeds paedophile lucky not to be charged with distributing child abuse images, court told
A teenager caught with sickening abuse pictures of “very young children” has avoided being locked up, despite the judge telling him he should have been charged with a more serious offence.
Leeds Crown Court heard that 19-year-old Mehran Mowlude avoided facing the tougher sentence of distributing the images after it was “suspected” he had forwarded them to like-minded perverts.
Following a tip-off, police had gone to his home address on Airedale Court in Seacroft in April of last year and seized his internet-savvy devices.
Following a forensic analysis, they found a total of 112 images, including 54 pictures and videos classed as Category A - the most serious that includes the rape of children. They also found 19 Category B, 37 Category C and two prohibited images of children.
He had been using the encrypted app, Telegram, the court heard. He later admitted three counts of making indecent images, three of possessing indecent images and one of possessing prohibited images.
Little mitigation was offered in court by his barrister, Mark Foley, when Judge Tom Bayliss KC said he had read the probation report into Mowlude, and raised questions about the distribution of images. Judge Bayliss said he remained “skeptical” and that his guilty pleas were the only thing that “saved him from an immediate custodial sentence”.
He told Mowlude: “This was disgraceful behaviour. You plainly have a sexual interest in children. There were images of very young children. There’s a suspicion you were distributing these but you were not charged with that, only of making indecent images.”
He gave him a two-year community order with 30 rehabilitation days. He was placed on the sex offender register for five years and given a five-year sexual harm prevention order to limit his internet use.