A 25-YEAR-OLD man has been jailed for downloading and distributing thousands of indecent images and videos of children as young as six months old.
Andrew Stephen Pallot was sentenced to three years in prison yesterday and placed on the Sex Offenders Register for a minimum of seven years, after pleading guilty to three counts of making indecent images and one charge of distributing indecent images.
He was found to have downloaded 1,330 images and 1,194 videos of children, and to have distributed 1,006 pictures and videos between April and November last year.
Of all the content found on Pallot’s phone, 223 of the images and 553 of the videos were category A, which is deemed to be the most serious.
Crown Advocate Lauren Hallam, prosecuting, told the Superior Number of the Royal Court, which convenes for Jersey’s most serious cases, that Pallot was arrested on 29 November 2021 after the States police received intelligence that an internet user had uploaded a category A and three category B indecent images to the web.
Following his arrest, a number of devices were seized. Evidence on a mobile phone showed that the content had mainly been accessed and distributed using the Telegram messaging app.
The defendant was interviewed and made immediate admissions, claiming that the ‘voice in his head’ had told him to do it.
Pallot also admitted creating an Instagram profile on which he posed as a 15-year-old boy and chatted to other young users.
There was no evidence to suggest that this profile was related to any of the charges, the court heard.
Advocate Hallam said: ‘The indecent images related mainly to male children aged approximately six to 14 years old. Some of the indecent images showed children outside this spectrum.
‘The category A movies included videos of babies aged six to 18 months. The indecent images included images of sexual activity between children and between children and adults.’
Advocate Sarah Dale, defending, pushed for a shorter custodial sentence and argued that the defendant should be given full credit for his early guilty pleas.
She told the court that Pallot, who had no previous convictions, had made significant efforts to turn his life around while on remand.
She said that he had attended regular therapy sessions and had met the psychology team at HMP La Moye to try to better understand his behaviour.
Delivering the sentence, Deputy Bailiff Robert MacRae said that the court accepted Pallot was embarrassed by his actions, but added that the volume of images downloaded was an aggravating factor.
Jurats Collette Crill, Robert Christensen, Steven Austin-Vautier, Joanne Averty and Andrew Cornish were sitting.
DC Allan Bale, from the States police’s Public Protection Unit, said: ‘These are not victimless crimes.
‘These images cause real harm to real children and the viewing and making of indecent images like these creates demand and so leads to further abuse.
‘Any form of abuse against children will not be tolerated and the States of Jersey Police are committed to target those who offend in this way.’
