A depraved Irthington Paedophile from North Cumbria, Daniel Wealands, who exhibited sexual interest in kids as young as six, was uncovered by an undercover police operation after disseminating abhorrent child rape photographs.
Daniel Wealands, 43, disclosed disturbing sexual fantasies to an internet acquaintance, oblivious to the fact that the individual he was communicating with was a police officer participating in an undercover web operation.
At Carlisle Crown Court, the defendant, Daniel Wealands, from Irthington, near Brampton, admitted guilt to 16 charges.
They were:
- Making three indecent child images, categorised as Category A, the most serious kind.
- A similar offence involving 19 Category B images.
- A like offence involving 50 Category C child images.
- Distributing a Category A child abuse image.
-Distributing seven Category C indecent child images. - Two counts of inciting a child to engage in sexual activity.
- And nine counts of voyeurism, when he secretly obtained images of various individuals for the purpose of sexual gratification.
Prosecutor Lucy Todd described the offending.
She outlined how Daniel Wealands was regularly visiting various websites which feature sexual images of kids and are known to be used by paedophiles.
During more than 2,000 visits to one website, he sent messages revealing his sexual interest in children.
On April 25 last year, he unwittingly became involved in conversations with a contact who was in fact an undercover police officer. During this, Daniel Wealands spoke of wanting to see a ten-year-old girl naked after seeing her picture.
“The defendant was…traced by his IP address,” said the prosecutor. This led to a raid on Daniel Wealands’ home address.
Police found more evidence of his sexual preoccupation with children.
The Category A images he had included girls as young as ten, with one child filmed tied to a bed as she was being raped by an adult.
The court heard statements from some of the four voyeurism victims.
One victim spoke of not being able to sleep, and having panic attacks, while another referred to being affected every day by what happened, and being unable to stop thinking about the awful thing that happened.
Judge Barker jailed the defendant for five years and four months. The defendant will be on the Sex Offender Register indefinitely and subjected to a sexual harm prevention order also indefinitely.
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