Supermarket worker downloaded hundreds of sick images including videos of child sex abuse.

Supermarket Worker Sentenced for Child Abuse Images

A supermarket worker has been sentenced for downloading hundreds of sick images, including videos of child sex abuse.

James Baines, 24, appeared in court on Thursday after admitting to five counts of possessing indecent images.

Police raided Baines's address in King Stephen Road last year and seized a Samsung mobile phone containing 255 category A images, 138 category B images, and 63 category C images.

Further searches revealed a Google Drive folder on Baines's laptop containing three category A videos and two category C images.

Category A images are classified as the most serious, depicting penetration of a child while they are in pain or distress.

Baines initially pleaded guilty to three charges of making an indecent photograph of a child and two charges of possessing an indecent photograph of a child at the magistrates' court. The case was then transferred to the crown court for a more severe sentence.

Prosecutor Lucy Sweetland told Ipswich Crown Court that Baines told officers he was "not shocked" when they executed the search warrant. He claimed the images were initially sent to him by other internet users in an online chat group but admitted he "willingly accepted the images and continued to access the chatroom".

The court heard that most of the images were of children around six years old, with one image depicting a child as young as four months. Miss Sweetland stated, "Another image shows a child distressed and crying during the abuse."

Defense attorney Frank O'Toole argued that Baines had no previous convictions and was employed full-time at a supermarket. He stated, "He is not trying to blame anyone else and he is not saying he was bamboozled or taken advantage of because of his age – he doesn't know why he did it. "The difficulty he has had from early adulthood was that he lost his hair and became very, very self-conscious because of that – he had decided to go to university but abandoned that idea because he felt his peer group wouldn't relate to him. "He self-imposed a personality that removed him from the normal exchanges he would have had with that group - to an extent, he was isolated."

Judge David Pugh sentenced Baines to an eight-month prison term, suspended for two years. He also ordered Baines to complete 30 days of rehab activity requirements, pay £340 in costs, and placed him on the sex offenders' register for ten years.