A WREXHAM man was caught with almost 250 pornographic images of children saved on his mobile phone.

Mold Crown Court heard how Edward Ben Hickley, 23, downloaded indecent images and films of children and traded advice with other perverts on where to access the material using Snapchat.

Prosecutor, Ffion Tomas, said police officers raided Hickley’s address at Bro Awelon, Penycae, Wrexham, on January 9, where they seized his phone following intelligence. Investigations revealed Hickley had downloaded 148 pictures and videos of children rated at Category A - considered to be the ‘most severe’ along with 44 Category B images and 49 Category C.

Hickley had saved the images using ‘cloud’ storage programmes and there was also evidence that he had engaged with other paedophiles online.

He had pleaded guilty at magistrates’ court to three charges of making indecent images of children, between September 2 to October 1 2018 and was sent crown court for sentencing.

Patrick Geddes, defending, said his client and pleaded guilty at the earliest opportunity and had co-operated fully with police.

He had also been the victim of abuse, “lived an isolated existence”, was naive and failed to consider the consequences to the victims of such pornography.

After considering a probation report that recommended Hickley was treated for his issues rather than be sent to custody, Judge Rhys Rowlands branded the offences “serious and disturbing”.

He said: “The fact that they were being stored online, increased the risk of them being seen by somebody else.”

Judge Rowlands handed Hickley an eight month sentence suspended for two years and ordered him to carry out a 60 day rehabilitation activity requirement (RAR).

He will also be the subject of a sexual harm prevention order and be required to register as a sex offender for 10 years.