Man jailed over explicit child videos

Antrim Crown Court heard that even though he was married and had a daughter of his own, 40-year-old John Alexander Adams logged in to anonymous chatrooms on an almost daily basis in order to engage in highly sexualised communications with girls, some as young as 12-years-old.

In an agreed basis of plea, prosecuting counsel Michael Chambers outlined that police seized numerous electronic and storage devices when they searched Adams’ home at The Meadows in Broughshane under a warrant in June 2016.

In total officers uncovered 239 indecent videos along with 361 still images across all three categories A, B and C, in addition to 11 images of extreme pornography involving adult women engaging in sex acts with animals.

Mr Chambers explained to the court how the searches also uncovered how Adams had been “engaged in sexualised chats with people purporting to be female children and then obtaining indecent images from these children,” adding that he had images and photos “from at least eight” young girls.

Arrested and interviewed, Adams admitted that using two specific, anonymous chatrooms, he would engage in conversation with females before the chat moved to Skype where he “described it as being a whole scene online – dominant/submissive fetish where he played the dominant … and directed them in what to do”.

Admitting that he was “ashamed and disgusted with himself” and that he engaged in chats on an almost daily basis, Adams claimed he “wasn’t out hunting for children” and alleged “he didn’t have a sexual interest in children”.

He later entered guilty pleas to a total of 32 offences including 21 counts of making or possessing indecent images of children, seven of having extreme pornography, three of attempted sexual communication with children and one of incitement to distribute indecent images.

Mr Chambers submitted that the length of time over which Adams committed the offences, a 12-year time span from March 2004 to the time of the search in June 2016, was an aggravating feature, as was the fact that Adams had been engaging in explicit sexualised chat with at least eight young girls.

Defence QC Gavan Duffy revealed that according to defence reports, Adams had been engaging in the same modus operandi since he had been a teenager but that as a result of the offences coming to light, he and his wife had now separated.

Ordering the defendant to spend half his 18-month sentence in prison and the rest under supervised licence conditions, Judge Neil Rafferty QC revealed the defendant’s mother’s home had been subjected to attacks by “misguided and totally wrong efforts by some individuals” who were trying to affect where sex offenders could live.

Adams was also ordered to sign the police sex offenders register for seven years, barred from working with children and was handed a 10-year Sexual Offences Prevention Order.