A former Scout leader has been spared jail for possessing thousands of indecent images, including of children being tortured and sexually abused. Martin Platts, who was a Scout leader for 39 years, made close to 80,000 searches on a Russian website to download more than 12,000 indecent images, with search terms including “gay cub scouts”, “young boys hanging”, “girls naked” and “naked molested”.
The 66-year-old was found to have “deliberately and systematically” searched for the images, according to a judge. Pictures including children as young as seven being abused were downloaded as early as 2011. Handing him a two-year sentence, suspended for two years, Recorder Ruth Coffey said Platts had committed a “betrayal of a community” but spared him an immediate custodial sentence due to his ill health.
She said: “This is quite an exceptional case coming before the court, both for the number of images, for the type of images, for the types of searches, for the very extensive period in which this behaviour has gone on without being detected, and for the positions of trust that you held. There is clearly a connection between the images that you sought and the children you had in your care.
“It is a betrayal of a community who have looked to you and behind every one of these images there is a child who has suffered and a child who has been abused. This behaviour leaves lifetime trauma for some victims.
“This is a real betrayal of these children when you have purported to help children in other ways. If it were not for your medical condition, this sentence would be one of immediate custody.”
Prosecutor Eddie Leonard told Derby Crown Court on Friday that when Platts was arrested by police in 2021, he was found to possess 6,440 accessible indecent and prohibited images, including 756 images in Category A, the most serious kind. There were also 5,874 inaccessible indecent and prohibited images across four devices. Many of the prohibited images were cartoons depicting abuse.
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The timeframe when Platts was a Scout leader was not disclosed in court, but Digby Johnson, mitigating, said he was also a school governor for five years in the 1980s. Platts, of Tennyson Avenue, Chesterfield, Derbyshire, had no previous convictions but later pleaded guilty to three counts of making indecent images of children and one count of possessing prohibited images.
Mr Johnson told the court there were no physical offences committed with children and his client had shown a “demonstration of contrition”. He said: “He is not someone who has been offending in other ways and people need not feel they have been in peril.”
As well as the suspended sentence, Platts was ordered to sign the Sex Offenders Register for 10 years and made the subject of a Sexual Harm Prevention Order.
