Whitby man stored indecent images of under-age girl taken from Snapchat on his phone


A teenager stored indecent images of an under-age girl and made a coded threat to share them online if she “caused him problems”, a court heard.
Robert Weatherill, 19, from Whitby, “screenshotted” a collection of naked Snapchat images of the teen on his phone, York Crown Court was told.
When the girl asked him to delete the images, he refused, said prosecutor Ashleigh Metcalfe.
And when Weatherill suspected she might cause him “problems” because of his behaviour, he told her: “Just be careful.”
“That gave her the impression that he was intending to use the photos as a bargaining tool to either show them to others or to use them against her,” added Ms Metcalfe.
She said that Weatherill admitted as much when he was interviewed by police following his arrest in June last year.
Ms Metcalfe said the girl had taken the lewd images of herself including a video where she performed a sexual act on herself.
Weatherill took screenshots of the Snapchat images – including a dozen photos – then saved them to his iPhone’s camera roll.
The girl – who cannot be named for legal reasons – received an online notification warning her that her pictures had been screenshotted.
“She asked him to delete them, but he didn’t,” added Ms Metcalfe.
Weatherill, currently of no fixed abode, was charged with two counts of possessing indecent images of a child and one count of making indecent images between April and June last year.
He admitted the offences and appeared for sentence on Tuesday.