Teenager gets four years over child sex images found on his mobile phone
A baby-faced teenager has been locked up for four years after thousands of pictures of child sex abuse were discovered on his mobile phone when he took it to a repair shop.
Shawn Anthony Frazer used an app on his phone which allowed him to download and distribute the most appalling images.
Ten thousand images were found on Frazer's phone by staff at a phone repair shop in Newtown, Mid Wales, and police were alerted.
Frazer, 19, had discussed the images in graphic detail with other men as far afield as America, Mold Crown Court was told.
When interviewed, Frazer said that he had tried to delete the images but they re-appeared. He said that he was shocked at the huge number found on his phone.
Police investigations continued and it emerged that not only had Frazer been looking at images of sex abuse but he had also sexually abused four children himself.
At Mold Crown Court Judge Rhys Rowlands gave him a four-year youth detention sentence and warned him that if he had been convicted after trial then the sentence would have been one of six years.
Frazer, of Salop Road in Welshpool, had admitted 20 charges of making and distributed indecent images – and 15 charges of sexual assault, sexual activity with a child and inciting a child to engage in sexual activity
He was ordered to sign on the sex register for life.
An indefinite SOPO (sexual offences prevention order) was made to curb his future activities.
Judge Rowlands described the offences, which had been committed over a two-year period, as serious and disturbing.
Mr Simon Rogers, prosecuting, said forensic analyses of the phone revealed discussions and descriptions of the images with other men in the most graphic of detail. Frazer was said to have been in conversation with a number of other men, including one in America.
Mr John Hedgecoe, for Frazer, said his client had realised what he was doing was wrong and had been seeking counselling before the police became involved.
