A FORMER Stratford man arrested during a police investigation into the uploading of indecent images had a sickening video clip of a young girl being raped on his phone.
When Josef Hesling first appeared at Warwick Crown Court he pleaded not guilty to three charges of making indecent images of children, and was due to stand trial.
But at a further hearing the 49 year-old who previously lived in the Clopton area of Stratford, finally admitted his guilt of all three charges.
Hesling, now of Appletree Grove, Weston-super-Mare, was sentenced to seven months in prison suspended for two years, and was ordered to take part in a rehabilitation programme, to do 150 hours of unpaid work and to register as a sex offender for ten years.
Prosecutor Antonie Muller said intelligence received by the police led to an investigating into the suspected uploading of indecent images of children onto the internet in February 2015.
That eventually led them to discovering Hesling’s G-mail and Yahoo accounts.
A phone account led them to Hesling, who had been living in rented accommodation in Stratford, but who had later moved on to Weston-super-Mare where he was arrested in March last year.
When interviewed, Hesling admitted he had lived at the Stratford address, and that the e-mail addresses were his; and he admitted possessing the images, which he said someone had sent him.
He said he chatted on websites where he shared sexual images, and accepted that some of the females ‘may have been under 16’ – but he claimed he did not believe they would be of children, and that ‘at worst it may be a 15-year-old.’
But Mr Muller pointed out that, in relation to the child rape video, there had been more than 50 messages between Hesling and the person who had sent it to him.
Jonathan Coode, defending, said: “He was sent it. He didn’t ask to be sent it. He believed he’d deleted it.
He added Hesling, who had been working in the hotel trade, had a new partner who seems to be a good influence on him.
Sentencing Hesling, Judge Andrew Lockhart QC told him: “You were a man of good character, yet in 2015 you were responsible for having on your devices images of children, one of a child being raped.
“That image will exist for years. Each and every time someone views that, that child, perhaps now in her teenage years or even an adult, is abused.
“It was an image of child rape which you chose to view. You were accessing the internet and speaking to others about those vile images.
“Happily that only went on for a short period. It is aggravated by the fact that that child was very young. But this was one movie, it was not a large collection.”
