A TEENAGER downloaded child abuse images from an online messaging site after logging in under the pseudonym Mr Martini.

Jack Stevens was traced to his home in Newton Abbot after police noticed the illegal activity on the Kik app which he used to chat to strangers through his iPad.

He had movies and photographs which included children as young as two suffering very serious abuse and he had also logged into a ‘teen orgy’ website.

He was spared an immediate prison sentence after a judge heard that he was so disgusted by his own behaviour that he wants to ‘sink to the floor’ whenever he thinks about it.

Stevens, now aged 21, of Drake Road, Newton Abbot, admitted three counts of making (by downloading) indecent images of children between November 2018 and April 2020, when he was 18 or 19.

He was jailed for 10 months, suspended for two years, by Judge Peter Johnson at Exeter Crown Court. He was also sent on a sex offenders’ treatment programme, ordered to do 45 days of rehabilitation activities and 150 hours of unpaid community work, with £340 costs.

He was made subject of a sexual harm prevention order which allows the police to monitor his online activity and put on the sex offenders’ register, both for 10 years.

The judge told him: ‘Some of these children were little more than babies but it is clear there has been genuine remorse on your part.’

Mr Thomas Faulkner, prosecuting, said police became aware in 2020 of a Kik user logged in as Mr Martini 67 or Joseph Markle downloading or exchanging child abuse material on Kik.

Stevens was traced through his IP address and two phones and an iPad were seized on which were found 199 images or movies. Of these, 13 images and seven movies were accessible and in the most serious category, showing penetrative abuse of children.

The children were aged two to 15 and one of the most extreme showed a girl of four suffering serious abuse.

Miss Evie Dean, defending, said Stevens was still a teenager when he carried out the offences and joined the chat group because it made him feel wanted. He became desensitised by the online activity.

She said he has signed up to the Stop it Now course, wants to undertake a sex offenders’ programme and is so ashamed of what he did that ‘he wants to sink to the floor when he thinks about it’.