Leeds paedophile confessed sickening abuse fantasies to undercover officer as he collected illegal images
A pervert who spent years downloading sickening child-abuse images was finally caught after he confessed his twisted fantasies to an undercover police officer.
Christopher Gibson thought he was talking to a like-minded paedophile online after initiating contact with the decoy account.
Leeds Crown Court heard that 57-year-old Gibson had gone into detail about how he fantasised about the decoy man abusing his own daughter.
When police came to Gibson’s home address to arrest him in April of last year, officers seized a number of electronic devices.
They found 84 Category A images - depicting the most serious abuse - 31 in Category B and 405 Category C images. They were downloaded between 2017 and 2023, prosecutor Benjamin Bell told the court.
They also found numerous searches he had made for young girls.
Gibson, of Elmwood Avenue, Barwick in Elmet, has no previous convictions. He admitted three counts of possession of indecent images.
Mitigating, Charlotte Noddings said Gibson had entered early guilty pleas and had even enrolled on the sex offender programme, Safer Lives, before he was even charged.
Even after completing the course, she said he even continued to attend sessions.
She said due to the “stress of work” he was accessing “more and more pornography” online but has now taken up new hobbies to minimise his time spent online.
Judge Richard Mansell KC gave him a 12-month sentence, but opted to suspend it for 12 months. He was given 30 rehabilitation days, put on the sex offender register for 10 years and given a 10-year sexual harm prevention order to curb his internet use.