A FORMER Royal Navy sailor who served in the Gulf wars and in the former Yugoslavia and Cambodia has been given a 12 month suspended prison sentence after being found with 300 extreme pornographic images and a total of 428 indecent and 40 prohibited photographs of children.

Gavin Neil Kendall, 46, of Brecksfields, Skelton, at York Crown Court pleaded guilty to three charges of downloading the indecent images, and a charge each for the extreme porn and prohibited photographs.

The court heard that police searched Kendall’s home in September last year after intelligence about his IP address on his computer.

They found a number of illegal searches had been made through the dark web of pornography that had been heavily encrypted. Images downloaded included children ranging in age from two years to teenage, posing erotically or engaged in sexual activity with themselves or adults and extreme pornographic images involving animals. They also found a live web cam and baby clothes

Derek Duffy,defending in mitigation said Kendall had had an exemplary naval career for more than 30 years and had no previous convictions.

He added that the probation service are satisfied he was low risk for the future and that Kendall had pleaded guilty.

Mr Duffy said Kendall had told him that when he joined the Royal Navy 30 years earlier pornography was viewed below decks and this persisted for years and people became desensitised.

During sentencing, Judge Paul Batty QC told Kendall: “I accept that below decks there may have been much viewing of pornography but in my view that is a long way short of what you were doing in this case.

“There are some serious aspects to it and I also refer to infants’ clothing found in your property and a live web cam.

“Some of the children depicted were as young as two years of age and these circumstances represent a real abuse of the most vulnerable in our society.”

Judge Batty said the fact that Kendall had refused to give up his passwords for heavily encrypted material means there can’t be any guarantees about what he was up to.

In addition to the 12 months suspended jail sentence, Kendall was handed a community sentence of 200 hours unpaid work, made the subject of a rehabilitation order and will be on the sex offenders register for ten years.