A father of two has been convicted of three counts of downloading child pornography and one charge of having an extreme pornographic image on his phones.
Raghib Karsho, 36, a father of two, was arrested almost three years ago in November 2021 when police went to his then home in Warren Way, Woodingdean.
Officers seized two Samsung mobile phones and they were found to contain hundreds of indecent images of children, including pre-teens, many showing intercourse or other sexual activity.
Francis Lloyd, prosecuting, said that 76 of the images were classed as category A, the most serious, 62 were category B and 104 were category C.
Mr Lloyd told a jury at Hove Crown Court that police also found one image of extreme pornography, involving sex with an animal.
Karsho, who later lived in Chailey Road, Moulsecoomb, was accused of downloading almost 250 illegal images on 20 dates in the year before his arrest and was charged with the four offences.
Summing up the evidence, Judge Christine Henson said that the police went to his home because they became aware that “indecent images had been uploaded from that address”.
The judge said: “When the police arrived, he denied that he had a mobile phone but the police could see it in his pocket.”
There was a search of the address, she said, and a second phone was found to contain more indecent images.
Karsho, who now lives in Hove, claimed that his phone must have been been hacked – or the images could have been downloaded when the phone was being repaired.
But, when tested by a mobile phone expert, there were no signs of malware, hacking or repair, the jury was told.
The defendant also tried blaming a support worker from a refugee charity who had been helping him after he came to Britain from Syria about eight years ago.
Earlier, Mr Lloyd said: “This is a desperate man who will say anything … but he downloaded vile pornography on his phone.”
Mr Lloyd tod the jury: “He said his phone was hacked. He said it was the police. He said it was a man called Steve.
“He said it was a second-hand phone but the downloads were made after he bought it and, besides, he said in evidence that it was clean when he bought it.”
Brian Shaw, defending, said to the jury: “He told you: ‘I have no knowledge of these images. I don’t know where they came from.’
“You simply cannot be sure that he made these images.”
Judge Henson told jurors that they could only convict the defendant if they were sure that he was guilty of the four offences.
The jury of 12 took less than an hour to convict Karsho unanimously on all four counts.
He awaits sentence. On Friday (11 October), he was remanded on bail until Tuesday 5 November for a further hearing.
This filth should be deported. We’ve got enough of our own depraved monsters.
Probably big boys did it and ran away…
It is child abuse NOT porn and the filthy beggar should swing.
It is child porn, or child pornography, if you prefer the unabbreviated term. Please don’t try to soften it or, worse, camouflage it by using euphemisms. Child porn invariably involves the abuse and exploitation of children, something any reasonable person knows, but please just call it what is and keep telling it straight. Don’t use the mealy-mouthed language adopted by the hand-wringing types who don’t want ordinary people to understand the obscene and revolting nature of what’s happened here.