A court was told that a father shared fantasies of what he would like to do to children.
The police visited Gareth Whinney’s home on May 22 last year, having received a referral to the internet child abuse investigation scheme from the National Crime Agency.
They investigated his devices and found that he had four indecent images of children. Indecent images of children are separated into categories A, B, and C, with Category A images being the most serious. Whinney had one Category B video and three judged at Category C.
The police also uncovered conversations Whinney had with another user on the Telegram app, dating to April 2025. Whinney, using the username ‘Firestarter’, was chatting with another user over a period of several months, from July 31, 2024, to May 14, 2025.
In this conversation, the two described the sexual things they would do to children if the pair were teachers.
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Whinney, 42 and of Quantrill Terrace, Kesgrave, was brought before Suffolk Magistrates’ Court on Monday. There, he admitted two counts of making indecent images of children.
He also admitted distributing a Category C video, having shared it with the online user he was messaging. It was said that in the online chat, he stated that the children in the video were under 18 and such videos were “hard to find”.
It also said that all the children depicted in the imagery Whinney had were aged between 12 and 16.
It was decided that a pre-sentence report was needed before Whinney can be sentenced and he was ordered to return to court on September 15.
What does ‘making’ indecent images mean?
According to the Crown Prosecution Service, the word “making” can be interpreted in a variety of ways by courts.
Meanings include, but are not limited to, opening an email attachment, downloading an image, and accessing a pornographic website in which indecent images appear by way of a 'pop-up'.
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