Simon Richard Abbott, a 34-year-old man from Whitby in North Yorkshire, has been sentenced to an additional 12 months in prison for downloading indecent images of children, marking his latest conviction in a long history of sexual offences. This sentencing follows a pattern of repeated breaches of court orders designed to prevent him from accessing such material, highlighting his persistent addiction to illegal pornography.
The current case stems from discoveries made by police in July 2021, when monitoring officers visited Abbott's home on Iburndale Lane in Sleights to ensure compliance with a lifetime sexual-harm prevention order. Upon seizing an Asus laptop and a tablet, Abbott confessed to officers that he had deleted items from his internet history and admitted that they would find illegal images on his devices. He stated he 'couldn’t help himself', underscoring the severity of his compulsion, which has been described in court as 'nigh-on unprecedented' in its persistence.
Analysis of the devices revealed 199 indecent images downloaded between December 2017 and August 2020 in Scarborough. Prosecutor Brooke Morrison noted that the children depicted appeared as young as three years old. This offence occurred while Abbott was subject to the prevention order, imposed after his initial three-year prison term in January 2015 for 27 counts of sexual offences, including making and distributing indecent photos of children and possessing approximately 30,000 illegal images. Of those, about 23,000 were classified as Level 1 in seriousness. Even after his 2015 arrest, while on bail, Abbott downloaded thousands more images within a week and uploaded them to Instagram.
In September 2021, Abbott received a 22-month sentence for breaching the order by deleting his internet history. The judge at that time, Sean Morris, the Recorder of York, warned him explicitly: 'if police found any more indecent images on his devices, he would receive another consecutive jail sentence.' Despite this, further images were uncovered, leading to Abbott's court appearance on 11 January 2022 at York Crown Court, where he admitted two counts of downloading indecent images of minors.
Defence representative David Camidge acknowledged Abbott's self-identification as a paedophile and the need for rehabilitation, noting that his probation report made for 'bleak' reading and that his difficulties with illegal pornography were 'fairly unprecedented'. Judge Morris, sentencing Abbott to 12 months consecutive to his prior term, remarked: 'It is clear that you “got your kicks” out of searching for paedophilic material on the internet. This is an old offence now and I take into account that the numbers involved are not particularly high, but you have to learn that when you do this, you are going to go to prison.'
The lifetime sexual-harm prevention order remains in place, restricting Abbott's internet activities to protect children. At the time of sentencing, Abbott was registered as of no fixed address, having previously lived in Whitby before his incarceration. North Yorkshire Police conducted the investigation and monitoring.