Wakefield paedophile jailed for distributing abuse material to other online perverts
Thousands of images found stored on his devices
A pervert who traded abuse images and had thousands of sickening videos and photos stored has been jailed.
Cale Lodge admitted a string of offences at Leeds Crown Court this week, but only when he was due to stand trial.
The 28-year-old confessed to being a drug addict and said he was a male sex worker to help pay for his habit.
Prosecutor Benjamin Bell said police had been tipped off and went to Lodge’s home address on Savile Street in Wakefield on March 23, 2022.
He was arrested and his mobile phone analysed, on which 98 child-abuse images and videos were found.
He had also been chatting with other paedophiles online and had sent them images.
Having been bailed, they went to arrest him again in October 2022 at an address on Lincoln Street in Wakefield.
They found him in the shed and they seized an iPad and another phone. They found around 3,000 more images.
Finally, in August last year, a man with whom Lodge had met on an online dating app contacted police to say he had seen an indecent image of a child on Lodge’s phone.
He was arrested again, and this time held on remand.
Lodge, of Lincoln Street, Wakefield, continued to deny matters, but changed his pleas on the second day of his trial.
He admitted three counts of distributing images, four counts of possessing indecent images, one of possessing prohibited images and one of possessing extreme pornographic images.
Lodge has three previous convictions but none for sexual matters.
Mitigating, Satpal Roth-Sharma described Lodge as a “deeply damaged and vulnerable young man” who leads a “very chaotic lifestyle”.
She said his substance abuse was also “severe” and that his life had “spiralled downwards”.
Judge Anesh Pema jailed him for a total of 64 months.
He was also given a 10-year sexual harm prevention order (SHPO) to curb his internet use and put on the sex offender register for life.