Graham Spells

Graham Spells, a 64-year-old man from Bishop Auckland, County Durham, was sentenced at Durham Crown Court for possessing child sexual abuse material. The court heard that on 9 March 2025, police visited his home on West Lane due to suspicions that he had been accessing indecent images. Officers seized his mobile phone and, upon examination, discovered a collection of horrific images and videos in categories A, B, and C, depicting children aged between five and 13 years old.

Prosecutor Jonathan Gittins informed the court that the material had been downloaded and saved in the phone's gallery via the Telegram social media platform. Spells, who is already subject to a lifelong sexual harm prevention order and listed on the sex offenders' register for life, initially denied knowledge of the content during his police interview but later admitted to the three counts of making indecent images, to which he had pleaded guilty.

The court was informed of Spells' prior convictions, including a 27-month jail term in November 2023 for distributing indecent images and a four-month sentence in November 2025 for breaching his prevention order. Defence counsel Kathryn Wetherley argued that Spells had maintained an offence-free lifestyle otherwise and attributed the behaviour to grief following the sudden deaths of his two brothers, with whom he was very close.

Judge Richard Bennett described Spells as socially isolated and highlighted his long-term deviant and distorted sexual interest in children. He branded the images as 'vile' and emphasised that each child depicted was a victim of sexual abuse. Spells appeared via video link from HMP Holme House and was sentenced to 20 months' imprisonment on Wednesday, 8 April 2026.