A TWITTER user has been ordered to receive sex offender treatment from the probation service after he was found with pictures of young girls on his computer.
They were all in the lowest category and showed girls as young as six in sexual poses, some naked and some wearing bathing costumes.
Oldfield, whose hotmail address was ‘The white bull rides again’, was caught with one of the clothed images on his Twitter account, Exeter Crown Court was told.
After his arrest he enrolled with the ‘Stop it Now’ campaign and the Lucy Faithfull Foundation to seek help for his internet use. He has also been restricted from having full access to his children as a condition of bail.
Oldfield, of Wood Lane, admitted one offence of making category C indecent images and was ordered to undertake 60 days of rehabilitation with the probation service as part of a community order.
Judge Graham Cottle also ordered him to sign on the Sex Offenders’ Register for five years and made a Sexual Harm Prevention Order which allows the police to monitor his internet activity for the same period.
He told him: ‘One reason this type of offending is so serious is that unless there are people prepared to view images, then children of six or seven would not be targeted by those seeking to make a profit out of this type of crime.
‘That is why your contribution to this kind of criminality is serious. You must realise that if it is repeated, you will go to jail.
‘You admitted the offence in full in your second interview and started to address your problem with the Stop it Now organisation. This community order will allow you to follow up that work.’
Gordon Richings, prosecuting, said Oldfield was identified by the National Crime Agency after an image was sent to him at the hotmail address of thewhitebullridesagain.
They found the 886 images, all in the lowest category and showing sexual posing rather than any form of sexual activity. One image of a young girl in a swimsuit was on his Twitter account.
He said he had no sexual interest in children and the images had been sent by other users of an internet community called KIK.
He told police ‘looking at photographs of young girls was the same as looking at nice cars.’
Paul Grumbar, defending, said Oldfield had already been punished by being kept apart from his children by bail conditions.
He said his client had shown remorse and had already taken steps to address his offending. He was carrying on the work with the help of the probation service.
He said: ‘He is not in employment and cannot work because he is clinically depressed. He has cloistered himself at his home and has not had much outside contact for some time.’