Teenager downloaded child sexual abuse images when he was just 13

A teen downloaded child abuse images when he was just 13, a court heard.

Ryan Cham was found with 878 indecent images of children when police raided his parents’ home and seized electronic devices from him last year.

Later analysis revealed that Cham, now 19, had first downloaded indecent images in October 2016, when he was just 13.

However, Carmel Wilde, prosecuting, said Cham later told police his offending had mainly escalated during the pandemic when he was isolated and spent far more time online.

Police eventually raided his family’s home in February last year after tracing his details to an indecent image uploaded to the Discord app.

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Ms Wilde said an analysis revealed that some of the images showed girls as young as three or four being raped, the Liverpool Echo reports.

She added that 150 of the images fell into the most serious Category A, with 287 in Category B and 441 in Category C.

Cham, from Noctorum, a suburb of Birkenhead, Merseyside, had also pleaded guilty to possessing two images which were extreme pornography.

Quentin Neal, defending, said Cham had already sought support to try to address his offending and had accepted responsibility for the offences early by pleading guilty to making and possessing indecent images of children.

He also pointed to Cham’s lack of maturity when he started offending.

Mr Neal said: “It was an early guilty plea, there were admissions made at the police station stage.

“Your honour has referred to the defendant’s lack of maturity, he was between 13 and 18 when these offences were committed.”

Mr Neal said a combination of factors made Cham’s “one of those very