August 2022

Hull charity worker had disgusting collection of indecent images of children

Vulnerable children aged as young as just three or four years old were among the disgusting images that were discovered in a charity worker’s vile hoard of pictures.

Shameless and brazen Christopher Mountain later tried to bluff his way out of trouble by insisting that he did not have a sexual interest in children.

He claimed that he refused to have anything to do with such images if they surfaced in adult “fantasy” groups that he joined.

But his story was rejected at Hull Crown Court because his vile collection of images, including some in the most serious category, was just too big for this to be true.

Mountain, 62, of Muswell Court, Hull, admitted three offences of possessing indecent photographs of children.

Stephen Welch, prosecuting, said that police went to Mountain’s home on January 14 last year after receiving information. A mobile phone was seized and indecent images of children were found.

They included still images and videos in the most serious Category A, still images and videos in Category B and still images in Category C.

Mountain denied any sexual interest in children but admitted taking part in live sexual fantasy discussions online, although he claimed that if others occasionally showed indecent images, he would leave the group or report what was happening, saying that “this was not his thing”.

The prosecution did not accept that Mountain did not have a sexual interest in children saying: “There was Category A material here.”

The majority of the children were aged nine to 10 years old but, in one Category A image, the child was aged three to four.

Mountain worked doing collections and deliveries for a charity

Judge Sophie McKone told Mountain: “These aren’t images of children who aren’t real. The children in those images are very real. In order for those images to be made, children are abused, not just once, not just twice but over and over again.”

Whenever people like him looked at these images, it fed the market for them and children would continue to be abused. “You have, in your way, played your part in those children being abused in those images,” said Judge McKone.

“I don’t accept that you don’t have a sexual interest in children. You clearly do, in my view, because that’s the images you were looking at.” People involved in viewing them often felt a high degree of shame about such things and that was why they found it difficult to accept that they had a sexual interest in children.

Work needed to be done on Mountain to make sure that he did not access such images again, said Judge McKone.

Mountain was given a nine-month suspended prison sentence, 150 hours’ unpaid work and 30 days’ rehabilitation.

He was given a 10-year sexual harm prevention order and must register as a sex offender for 10 years.