A Sandown man turned to making and distributing indecent images of children after experiencing intimacy issues in his marriage, a court has heard.
Stuart Pettifer, 57, of Station Road in Sandown, appeared at the Isle of Wight Crown Court for sentencing today (Tuesday) having previously admitted 3x making indecent photograph/pseudo-photograph of a child and 1x distributing an indecent photograph/pseudo-photograph of a child.
The court heard how early on 5th December 2022, Police arrested Pettifer at his home address in Sandown. A search of his hotel come home was conducted and a black iPhone – with a cracked screen – was seized. When questioned in interview, Pettifer made no comment.
Police found that Pettifer was using an Instagram account under the name of Firestone669, searching for things such as ‘pre-teens’ and ‘sweetie school girls’. The 57-year-old was also a member of chat groups on Kik where he – alongside other like-minded individuals – would share indecent images. 1 of the images shared by Pettifer was of a young girl wearing just a bikini.
The court heard how a total of 14x Category A images (5 still and 9 moving), 12x Category B (7 still and 5 moving) and 23x Category C images (20 still and 3 moving) were found. Pettifer distributed a total of 1x Category C image. All of the images were found on the 57-year-old’s computer.
The age range of the children depicted in the images was between 5-14.
Defending Pettifer, his solicitor told the court that the 57-year-old fell down a ‘blackhole’ following intimacy issues in his marriage. She added that her client was of previous good character and that he was deeply ashamed and embarrassed of what he had done.
Sentencing Stuart Pettifer, His Honour Judge Newton-Price KC handed down an 8-month prison sentence suspended for 18 months.
Pettifer was ordered to complete 45 rehabilitation activity days, 100 hours of unpaid work and pay £150 costs. He was handed a 10-year Sexual Harm Prevention Order (SHPO) and placed on the sex offenders register for 10 years.
ISLAND ECHO can I ask, please, where have all the comments gone since you’ve updated your website?
At the end of most news reports you have a comments section, but no-one has left a comment, which seems very strange to me, given how many people would leave a comment before.
People are not commenting so frequently because they have to create and log into an account which means they can’t comment anonymously, for ‘some’ people this appears to be an issue…
It’s because they consistently overstepped the boundaries of decent commentary, despite being warned numerous times they were straying into illegality. This new updated section now provides accountability, where transgression can be proven and removed before it negatively affects the website, which is also accountable.
Previously you could post completely anonymously. You weren’t even required to validate your email address.
This lead to a large number of trolls posting revolting comments in the knowledge that they can’t be identified.
Now they have to register real email addresses they know they can’t post their racist, misogynistic and homophobic bile and get away with it.
I have to say, I’ve never come across any comments of outright derogatory comments aimed at someone’s skin colour, outright hatred for for someone based purely because they are female, nor anyone who have shown signs of an irrational fear of someone based on that person’s sexual preference. How odd.
Wow these sentences for these absolutely disgusting perverted crimes are terrible! With the most vulnerable victims in society this is frightening! What a state this country is in.!
Stuart Pettifer should never be allowed out of prison. Shares kiddie porn and then the weak perverted creep blames his wife because quite understandably he made her skin crawl. And his solicitor should be entirely ashamed of herself for concocting such a vile excuse.
Suspended sentence? The children in those images are real. The sentence should be real too. I would like to throw him to their mothers