A SEX offender "addicted" to indecent images of children chatted about sexually abusing youngsters, York Crown Court heard.

John Patrick Steenson, 59, swopped sexual images of children with a like-minded person, said Michael Cahill, prosecuting. 

He had already been cautioned by police for having similar images.

When police raided his home, they found 192 videos of children being sexually abused including 68 of the worst kind, as well as images of bestiality.

Recorder Simon Jackson KC described the illegal images as “divisive and corrupting”.

“What you have described as an addiction is something you have now committed to address,” the judge told Steenson. “And you recognise you were using these images for sexual purposes.”

The judge passed a 16-month prison sentence suspended for two years on condition Steenson does a 43-day sex offender rehabilitation programme, 30 days’ rehabilitative activities and 250 hours’ unpaid work.

Steenson will be on the sex offenders’ register and subject to a sexual harm prevention order, both for 10 years.

Steenson, of Jewbury, central York, pleaded guilty to two charges of distributing indecent images of children, three charges of having indecent images of children, one of having extreme pornography and one of having prohibited images of children.

Mr Cahill said Steenson met someone via the Kik chat app and they realised they shared an interest in sexual images of children.

“In the chats, they fantasised of sexually abusing children and images were sent back and forwards between them,” said the prosecution barrister.

Police had a tip-off about Steenson’s activities and raided his home. They found 68 videos and one picture of the worst kind of sexual images of children, 70 videos and one picture of the middle category and 54 videos and 22 pictures of the least serious kind of images.

They also found evidence he had distributed one picture of a girl aged eight to 10 in the worst category of image and five images of the least serious category. He also had four images of bestiality and three prohibited images.

In 2006, Steenson was cautioned for having indecent images of children. He had no conviction.

Defence barrister Nick Hammond said Steenson had started rehabilitating himself before the court case by taking a course in tackling his urges.

He accepted he had a problem and was prepared to work to deal with it.

The probation service had said it felt it could work with him in a report to the court.

The judge said generally Steenson led a hardworking and blameless life.

Although when he had been interviewed by a probation officer for the report to the court, he had initially said he was not sexually attracted to children, he had later in the interview changed that.