A 30-year-old Bury St Edmunds man who downloaded more than 2,000 indecent images of children and distributed them over the internet has been jailed for 32 months.
After sending images of children being sexually abused to a man who said he would like to have sex with them and hurt them, Samuel Branthwaite offered to “hold them down”, Ipswich Crown Court heard.
Branthwaite, of Ashwell Road, Bury St Edmunds, pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to three offences of making indecent images of children, three offences of distributing indecent images of children, possessing prohibited images of children, and possessing extreme pornographic images.
The court heard that police had executed a warrant at Branthwaite’s home after receiving information that his email had been used to upload indecent images of children to the internet
Officers seized his mobile phone during the raid on October 5, 2021, and Branthwaite immediately made admissions to the offences to officers at his home.
When the phone was analysed it was found to contain 822 indecent images of children in the most serious level A category as well as 803 images in category B.
A further 649 indecent images of children in the lowest level C category were also found.
It was also discovered that Branthwaite had sent indecent images of children to other people over the internet including five category A indecent images, three category B images and two in category C to a user over the platform Kik.
He had also distributed one category A indecent image to another person, and a further two category B images to a different user via messaging application Wickr.
A total of 179 prohibited images of children were also discovered on his phone as well as 80 extreme pornographic images involving animals.
The court heard that in 2013 Branthwaite was given a community order after admitting similar offences.
Robert Pollington for Branthwaite accepted the images, which featured children as young as three to six months being sexually abused were “unpleasant and unsavoury”.
He said Branthwaite had a preoccupation with sexualised images of children but had no wish to act on that preoccupation.
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