Convicted child rapist caught with a hoard of indecent images.

Convicted child rapist claims indecent images were a "coping mechanism"

Jordan Chambers, who was previously jailed for raping a young boy and molesting a girl, has been sentenced to 12 months in prison after being found with hundreds of indecent images of children.

The 22-year-old, who was a youth himself when he committed the previous offenses, told the court that he looked at the illegal material to prevent himself from carrying out further contact offenses.

Chambers, from Wallsend, was caught with 157 category A images, 176 category B images, and 699 category C images, along with two videos, on his phone.

He admitted to downloading the images between July and November 2022 and said he had stored them on a cloud storage app.

Prosecutor Nick Lane stated, "By way of explanation, he said he had a sexual interest in children and he used the images he downloaded via the Tor browser as a coping mechanism to make sure he didn't commit any further contact offenses."

Chambers' lawyer, Shaun Routledge, argued that his client had repeatedly requested to participate in a sex offender treatment program while serving his previous sentence but was never given the opportunity.

"While he was serving his last sentence he asked on numerous occasions to go on the Horizon (sex offences) course. He has never been given a single sexual prevention course, despite getting 57 months," Routledge said.

"He said he didn't get on the course and other people did. The course was not available. It's the first thing he said to the police when he was arrested. He needs help. He is young and pleaded guilty at the first opportunity."

Chambers was sentenced to 12 months in prison, of which he will serve up to half. He has also been recalled on licence for his previous sentence, with his release date being October 31, 2023.