A businessman who posed as teenagers in internet chatrooms and on social media sites, may have contacted up to 60 children around the world, Northampton Crown Court heard.
Company director Mark Rogers, 54, was arrested at his printing business, Shire Lumsden, in Whiston Road, Cogenhoe, in June 2011 after police in Northampton were tipped off about the download of abusive images of children.
Caroline Allison, prosecuting, said that when police arrived, Rogers was seen leaving with a rucksack and when confronted, he tried to dispose of two memory sticks by blowing his nose and throwing them into a bin hidden with the tissue.
The USB sticks held hundreds of indecent images of child sex abuse and investigations revealed Rogers had been using his work computer and a neighbour’s wireless connection in Barton Seagrave to download them.
However, officers also found he had created two fake profiles of a 16-year-old boy, named Tom Simmonds, and a teenage girl, named Zoe or Lucy, to target underage girls as young as 12, through MSN Messenger, Facebook and MySpace.
Police also found he had been sending sexual pictures of himself and had been sharing the images with a man in South Africa. They also found a list of 59 names of children he had contacted using the alter-egos. And there was evidence he was in contact with children in Thailand, America and Romania.
Rogers, of Cranmere Avenue, Rushmere, Northampton, pleaded guilty to 20 charges of making, possessing and distributing indecent images and causing or inciting children to take part in sexual activity.
He was jailed for 23 months and will be a registered sex offender for 10 years.
Judge Rupert Mayo said: “This was a gross breach of trust with complex and sophisticated use of social network sites. It was more than curiosity and in my view, you have a corrupt view of how adults and adolescents should interact.”
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