A vile paedophile who targeted young girls on Snapchat has been jailed.
Mark Dodds, 38, physically and emotionally abused a large number of children between the ages of eight and 15 over a ten year period, often blackmailing them if they refused to send him naked images or perform sexual acts during the contact. His offending came to light when Durham Constabulary were notified by another police force that he was having sexual contact over Snapchat with a 12-year-old.
Newcastle Crown Court heard officers attended the defendant’s home in Spennymoor in August 2020 to arrest him after an investigation by the other force.
Paul Cleasby, prosecuting, told the court: “When police arrived at the defendant’s door he did not answer. Officers could see him crouching behind the door. Eventually he opened the door and was arrested. His property was searched and electronic items were seized.
“Included in the seizures were a white iPhone in the defendant’s hand on his arrest, a black iPad found in the living room and red HB laptop.
“Body-worn footage was taken at the defendant’s address which was later used to prove it was the defendant communicating with the victims as the décor matched his home.”
Mr Cleasby told the court the police were able to establish a number of offences had taken place.
The court heard Dodds asked his victims to perform sex acts on video calls and would record them without their knowledge. Mr Cleasby told the court when the victims wanted to stop speaking to Dodds, he would threaten to distribute the videos and images.
The court was told Dodds would use various names and profile pictures and pose as teen boys or girls.
In one case, a victim told officers the defendant demanded she contact him, complained he was being ignored and acted like “her boyfriend” and monitored her Snapchat. The defendant added friendship groups of the victim on social media and sent the images, suggesting she had sent him images, the court was told.
One victim from the USA was aged between nine and 11 years old. Mr Cleasby said: “The police investigation revealed message exchanges between the defendant and [victim] asking for indecent videos to be sent to him.”
The offending dated back to 2015 with the victim speaking to officers in 2023, the court heard. She told officers she used social media sites when she was younger.
Mr Cleasby said: “Between the ages of nine and 11 a specific user messaged her and knew her address, name of her mother and brother. She panicked and moved to another social media platform but the man followed her.”
The court heard the defendant posed as a 15-year-old boy and started to message her, saying he had indecent images of her and asked for further indecent images. When she refused, he changed his profile picture to a naked picture of the victim.
Mr Cleasby said: “He demanded images or would tell [the victim’s] family and sent pictures of her family’s social media pages to show he knew who they were.”
The court heard it carried on for a prolonged period of time and he carried out the threat by contacting the victim’s family.
Mr Cleasby said officers found another victim after he had obtained images of a teen girl. He persuaded her to send pictures and videos of herself but after she tried to disengage he threatened to send videos and pictures to her friends and family, the court was told.
In another case, Dodds communicated with another girl for around seven months and asked for indecent images and sent images of himself performing a sex act.
The defendant was in possession of more than 1,000 Category A moving and still images, more than 900 Category B images and more than 40,000 Category C images, and extreme pornographic images.
The court heard some of the children in the images were aged as young as one or two, with the defendant using a number of chat forums to target victims.
Mr Cleasby told the court officers attended Dodds’ property in November 2023 for a second search and arrest.
He said: “The defendant was receiving a live stream on his Chromebook which contained live and indecent images of children. The defendant sought to resist being arrested and it took significant efforts by the police to subdue the defendant and to seize the relevant devices.”
Following the search analysis of his devices by police they were able to identify another five separate child victims, the court was told.
Andrew Stranex, defending, said Dodds accepts what the crown is alleging against him.
He added: “The important point is the defendant did accept substantially what the crown alleges against him. In my submission that is an important first step. He did have a trial in October of last year and your honour heard his evidence around that.
“What is going to follow is a substantial custodial sentence that will punish him and ensure the public is protected from him during the period of incarceration.”
Mr Stranex said the time would allow him to work on his behaviour.
Dodds pleaded guilty to offences which included sexual communication with children; blackmail; taking, possessing and distributing indecent images.
Last October, he pleaded not guilty to six counts of sexual assaults on a child at Durham Crown Court. Following a three-day trial, in which the victim provided evidence, it took jury members just 11 minutes to find him guilty of all six counts.
Appearing at Newcastle Crown Court on January 6, he was sentenced to 20 years in jail and six years on extended licence. He was also was made subject of a sexual harm prevention order to last indefinitely and must sign the sex offenders register until further notice.
On sentencing, Recorder Thomas Moran said the defendant presented as a “self absorbed” and “self pitying” individual at trial.
He added: “A pre-sentence report describes your appearance as aloof, nonchalant and defensive. You later apologised for your attitude and appeared to be remorseful. The opinion of the experienced probation officer is that because it dawned on you the report would be negative.
“As a whole you tried to discredit the victims, generally minimised the seriousness of what you did and inevitably the report concluded you present a very high risk of harm to children.”
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