A pervert chemist from Warrington who filmed men performing sex acts and urinating and sent child abuse images to his partner has received a suspended prison sentence.
Axel Savage took 282 images at a public toilet over a three-day period, some taken over and under toilet cubicles as well as filming 15 consenting men engaged in sexual acts.
The disgusting images on his phone came to light after police executed a search warrant at his Great Sankey home after they received information about his email address being linked to child porn photographs and videos, said Ken Grant, prosecuting.
His phone was forensically examined after the raid on February 10 last year and two images in the most serious category of child abuse images were found along with three photographs and four videos in the next most serious category.
Mr Grant told Liverpool Crown Court that four of the images had been distributed on WhatsApp but only to his partner.
Savage, 30, of Fordington Road, Great Sankey, pleaded guilty to eight offences involving voyeurism, making, possessing and distributing indecent images.
Jim Smith, defending, said that Savage, a dispensing chemist, has no previous convictions and the offences happened some time ago.
“The WhatsApp distribution was between him and his partner,” said Mr Smith, who pointed out that his partner and the defendant’s mum were sat in the public gallery.
He said Savage accepted what he had done was illegal and put him at risk of going to prison. He pointed out that the distribution offences involved a “closed circuit” between him and his partner and the images were intended for his personal use.
Mr Smith said that references described the defendant as “kind, hard-working, friendly.” He supports his mum and granddad and has worked in the pharmaceutical industry for ten years and was “a valued member of the community.”
Judge David Swinnerton said that the case involved a relatively small number of images of boys aged between 12 – 14. But he pointed out that those who view such images perpetuate children being abused.
He told Savage that normally he jailed people for distributing child abuse images but this case involved only four images and only to his partner, acknowledged his own wrongdoing in relation to that.
Judge Swinnerton said that the court was “not naive to what goes in certain toilet blocks” but he pointed out they were public toilets and members of the public were entitled to go in without being photographed.
He sentenced him to 20 months imprisonment suspended for two years and ordered him to carry out 150 hours of unpaid work and 30 days of rehabilitation activities.
He also ordered him to sign on the Sex Offenders Register for ten years and imposed a Sexual Harm Behaviour Order for the same length of time.
