A DRUG dealer serving a substantial prison sentence has been unanimously acquitted of multiple charges of making abusive images of children.
Kevin Newson, 30, now faces an anxious wait to see whether he will face a retrial as a jury at Northampton Crown Court could not reach a verdict on the remaining allegation of possessing abusive images.
Tim Brown, prosecuting, said Newson, who is currently serving 44 months for heroin dealing which was imposed in January, was arrested in April 2010. When his Daventry home was searched, officers seized his mobile phone and computer memory stick.
They were found to hold 442 images of child sex abuse but he denied any knowledge of them, later telling police the memory stick belonged to sex offender John Cook, who had used the phone for selling drugs.
Mr Brown said: “The defendant is a drug dealer. That is common ground between the prosecution and the defence.
“He was arrested at his Daventry home more than two years ago now on suspicion of drug dealing. At the time, he was arrested, he had in his possession a grey Sony Ericsson mobile phone and it was seized by the police.
“If you are arrested for drug offences, one of the things the police do is interrogate your mobile phone to see whether or not there are relevant messages involving drug dealing.
“Someone had been on the internet, browsed for the images and had taken those images and placed them in the phone’s picture gallery. On there were indecent photos, specifically 123 of them.”
The jury heard the majority of the abusive images on the phone were classed at the lowest level although there were three pictures of children being subjected to serious sexual abuse.
Mr Brown added: “On June 30, 2010, Newson’s home was searched again by the police in their pursuit of enquiries, in the presence of the defendant’s partner. Amongst the items was a Sony one-mega bite memory stick.”
It held 319 indecent images including 15 classified at the second most serious kind.
Newson, who denied seven charges of making and possessing indecent images, was acquitted of all but one charge. However, the jury were discharged by Judge Rupert Mayo after telling him they were unlikely to reach a verdict of the single possession allegation.
The Crown Prosecution Service now has a week to decide if it is to pursue a re-trial.
The jury heard during the trial how he was jailed in January after pleading guilty to possessing class A drugs with intent to supply.
He had been stopped in a car in Long March, Daventry, as the vehicle had been linked to drug dealing. Officers found 13 grams of heroin, worth £725, but Newson claimed he had been set up by them, an allegation he later abandoned.