Robert Lewthwaite, a recidivist paeedophile sex offender from Kendal, downloaded several abhorrent child abuse photographs, including some depicting victims as young as three years old.
Robert Lewthwaite, a 29-year-old man from Kendal, was incarcerated after a judge determined that he presents an ongoing threat to children, despite receiving competent assistance from the Probation Service.
Robert Lewthwaite acknowledged violating a sexual harm prevention order and downloading around 300 indecent photographs of minors, including 58 categorised as Category A, the most severe type of abusive images.
At Carlisle Crown Court, Judge Nicholas Barker told the defendant: “These are not victimless crimes: these images depict real children, as young as three or four and five or six, who were subjected to the most horrendous, gratuitous sexual abuse.”
The demand for such images by people like Robert Lewthwaite supported the activities of the abusers who created those images.
Prosecutor Brendan Burke said the background was that Robert Lewthwaite was given a seven-year sexual harm prevention order in February 2019, which was designed to curb his internet use and prevent reoffending.
It was part of his sentence for similar offending, when he downloaded hundreds of child abuse images, the court heard. Robert Lewthwaite was specifically warned not to use cloud storage facilities, said Mr Burke.
But on January 14 police visited the defendant and discovered that he had done this, accessing three cloud storage sites. There was evidence that he had deleted content from his internet history and devices.
Police eventually recovered the images he had been viewing: 58 of Category A, 96 of Category B, and 128 of Category C.
Jeff Smith, defending, said Robert Lewthwaite, of Low Kirkbarrow Lane, Kendal, suffered autism and consequently was isolated and struggled to make relationships (NB Autism does not make you want to shag children). “He is isolated from the vast majority of his family, other than his grandfather,” said Mr Smith.
“He clings desperately to those who are close to him.” Robert Lewthwaite needed professional support to turn his life around, said the lawyer. The defendant recognised his failings and did not want to minimise them.
The lawyer said that group therapy would help Robert Lewthwaite, who did not want to sink yet again to the depths of depravity.
Jailing Robert Lewthwaite for 18 months, Judge Barker concluded that the defendant had returned to his former offending behaviour, which probation staff had described as being “a highly established pattern of offending.”
While accepting that Lewthwaite suffered difficulties linked to his autism, the judge said there was a pattern of offending, and he was not satisfied that at present there was a realistic prospect of rehabilitation.
Robert Lewthwaite will be on the Sex Offender Register for a decade and his sexual harm prevention order will last for the same period.
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