A pervert was found to have breached a court order when police discovered sick child abuse images on a Kindle his family had “relented” and let him have.
Michael Clay-McClusky was given a suspended prison sentence by a judge in November 2018 after being convicted of possessing indecent images of children.
The 53-year-old was also made the subject of a Sexual Harm Prevention Order (SHPO), but a court heard he only complied for “a few months” before seeking out the vile material online again.
When police went to his home for a review in September last year, they asked him to hand over any electronic devices he had.
Newcastle Crown Court heard one of these was a Kindle, where officers found an indecent video of a teenage girl.
Prosecutor Emma Dowling said that on closer inspection, there were three images and five videos on the Kindle. The five videos were category A - the most serious, showing penetrative sexual activity.
One of the videos showed a girl believed to be as young as six years old.
The court heard it was clear that Clay-McClusky had also been deleting his internet history - something he had been banned from doing as part of his SHPO.
Ms Dowling said: “One can assume key words must have been entered, hence the need to delete that history.”
Clay-McClusky was arrested and admitted looking at the images “for his own sexual gratification”.
Tony Cornberg, mitigating, said Clay-McClusky had a “history of fixation, described as addiction” with this material.
He told the court that the defendant had accessed a counselling charity whilst in custody and that his wife was willing to take him back after his prison sentence, saying she had “pin coded and password protected all the devices”.
Mr Cornberg said: “The probation intervention, particularly during lockdown, was fairly minimal.”
Clay McClusky, of Old Durham Road, Gateshead, pleaded guilty to possessing indecent images of children and breaching a Sexual Harm Prevention order.
The judge, Recorder Nicholas Lumley QC, told him, “Your stepdaughter talks of you having been prevented from accessing these sorts of devices.
“She or her mother relented because they thought you could be trusted, but it seems you couldn’t be trusted.
“You had been looking at them for a period of nine months. I accept you tried for a few months to comply with the SHPO, but after a couple of months you went looking for that sort of material for your own sexual gratification.”
The judge sentenced Clay-McClusky to a total of two years and two months in prison.
