Bilsthorpe pervert shared sick images of babies being raped and tortured

When police confronted Adam Johnson in June last year, he told them: “I think I may have done something. There are indecent images. I downloaded them during lockdown. I was bored.”

Analysis of his laptop and phone revealed Johnson, them aged 18, downloaded a “paedophiles’ manual” which contained advice like “don’t be afraid to rape” and claimed “each child molester has an average of 35 victims and loves to hear their victims scream”.

Nottingham Crown Court heard he had 540 indecent images of children, including 65 movies, 101 of which were category A – the most serious category – as well nine prohibited images.

The images featured “extremely graphic images involving the torture and abuse of very young children in clear distress”, including babies being raped when they were tied up, blindfolded and screaming.

Johnson engaged in 20 different chats with other perverts in which he said: “I would like to f*** babies in front of people. I have no limits. I am into babies.”

Johnson, of Valley Road, Bilsthorpe, admitted three counts of distributing, and five counts of possessing indecent and prohibited images.

Stefan Fox, mitigating, said: “Without taking away from the absolutely abhorrent nature of these offences the court will have experiences of cases where thousands of images are involved.”

He said Johnson had “no intent to commit that sort of offence but to talk with others”.

Mr Fox said: “He accepts he is looking down the barrel end of a prison sentence. It would be the first time he has been away from his family.

“He was forced to leave the family home. His family had to rent him a flat to comply with his bail conditions. Experts say he might have an undiagnosed learning difficulty. He deserves credit for his guilty plea.”

Sentencing, Judge William Harbage KC told him: “These are sickening, disgustng and perverted offences. It’s bad enough to possess that sort of material for your own sexual gratification, but you have distributed 90 images and videos.”

Johnson was sentenced to 32 months in a young offender institution and placed on the sex offenders register indefinitely.