Description
A man who was fixated on harrowing baby and toddler sexual abuse has today been jailed.
Ryan Lee Rowland Smith, 23, from Stockton has been convicted of nine offences, including three counts of distributing indecent images of children, three counts of making indecent images of children, possessing a paedophile manual and possessing extreme pornography- including bestiality, possessing prohibited images of a child.
Today, Monday 18th August, Smith was sentenced to four years in prison plus four years on extended licence. He has been placed on the Sex Offenders Register for life and has been made subject of a Sexual Harm Prevention Order for ten years, meaning he will be managed by Cleveland's specially trained Management of Sexual or Violent Offenders Officers.
Over 4,000 child abuse images and videos were discovered on his mobile phones which included 13.5 hours of video time, eight hours of which were category A, the worst grade of footage.
Leading investigator, Paedophile Online Investigation Team (POLIT) Constable Barnes, said:
“I have managed sex offenders and investigated sexual offences for over 10 years and Ryan Smith is, by far, the worst offender I have dealt with in relation to this type of crime. Every minute of footage on his phone showed a baby or child suffering extreme abuse.
“The horrific content he was accessing, and sharing, was very specific and mainly involved babies and toddlers. The content was so harrowing, our team went as far as to warn defence to be cautious as this is some of the most horrific content we have been exposed to.
“Smith was accessing this content, in the main depicting pain and suffering, for his own satisfaction and nothing more. Smith's offending is abhorrent; in my eyes, he has committed the most horrendous crimes imaginable.
“When our team arrested Smith in October 2024 it was 6:30am and he had already been on his device accessing vile content. Since then, officers from the team have gone above and beyond to gather evidence against Smith. At times it was extremely difficult for the team, as they had to view everything which Smith accessed; the tenacity and expertise of the team as a whole secured the convictions against Smith.
“Smith has shown no shame or remorse for the crimes he has committed, even answering ‘no comment’ when interviewed, for this, he deserves to spend a long time behind bars where he cannot cause further harm.”