Mansfield pervert’s masquerade as young girl led cops to his trove of child porn

Former care-worker Glynn Pettitt used a child’s image as his profile picture while pretending to be a young girl who had been raped, Nottingham Crown Court was told.

“I want you younger than 18 just to be clear,” he said in conversations about sexual abuse which led police to seize three phones and a tablet when they raided his home on March 9 last year.

Analysis revealed he had 139 category A indecent images, 176 category B images and 48 category C images, of which 89 were videos. Five prohibited images of a child and two extreme pornographic images were also found.

Charlotte Coverley, mitigating, said Pettitt, of previous good character, was “ashamed and embarrassed about his behaviour” which led to the loss of a job in the care industry he’d held “very dear” for 20 years.

She described him as a “socially-isolated individual” who initially went online to communicate but began indulging in “a fantasy world”.

“Crude communications between adults clearly descended into something slightly different,” Ms Coverley said. “He knows he could well receive a custodial sentence.”

Pettitt, aged 40, of Bath Lane, Mansfield, pleaded guilty to possessing indecent images when he appeared in the magistrates’ court.

On Tuesday, Judge Steven Coupland told him: “The content of what you were saying was particularly troubling.

“Each of those 89 videos depicts a real child being abused for the purposes of people like you looking at them. People like you perpetuate that abuse.”

But there was no evidence he has been involved with a child and the offence was “out of character,” he said.

"This behaviour has cost you one job it may cost you another,” the judge told him. “You retain the support of your family who are appalled as anyone else about your behaviour and will do their best to ensure you don’t repeat it.”

Pettitt received a ten month sentence, suspended for two years, with 20 rehabilitation days and 200 hours of unpaid work.

He must sign the sex offenders register for the next ten years and was barred from working with children and vulnerable adults.