A FORMER Royal Navy officer from Carlisle who was prosecuted two years ago for possessing sickening child abuse images secretly used websites which gave him access to pictures of naked children.

Frank Galloway, 64, admitted his online activity amounted to three breaches of a sexual harm prevention order that aimed to restrict his use of the internet.

The defendant, of Chiswick Street, Carlisle, was remanded in custody after the court heard that his willingness to deceive police and probation staff who monitor his online behaviour meant he posed a higher risk.

At the city’s Rickergate court, prosecutor George Shelley said Galloway was made subject to a sexual harm prevention order by a Carlisle Crown Court judge in December 2020 after he admitted possessing abuse images.

The court order meant his computer and phone were fitted with software monitoring programmes to prevent and discourage repeat offending.

But the defendant’s Cumbria Police monitoring officer became aware that Galloway had been accessing “images of concern” after logging on to two American social media and file sharing sites – Tumblr and Flikr.

Multiple images of male and female naked children were viewed on July 8 and 9, said Mr Shelley. “In his interview,” said Mr Shelley, “Mr Galloway accepted that he had registered Flikr and Tumblr accounts but said he was unaware that they were social media platforms.”

Mr Shelley said magistrates did not have sufficient powers to deal with the offences before the court, given that they were committed while Galloway was still under the threat of a suspended 12-month prison term.

The real concern of Galloway’s offender manager was that the defendant had deliberately attempted to access indecent child images.

Jeff Smith, defending, said: “Frank Galloway was convicted almost two years ago and since that conviction his behaviour has been impeccable. He has completed his unpaid work without any problems and cooperated with the Probation Service.”

The lawyer suggested there was a link between the two days of offending and the defendant experiencing problems with his mental health from the beginning of July. The images involved were accessible on the internet, said Mr Smith.

“He wasn’t trawling the dark web,” said the lawyer, saying that Galloway had been online because he is interested in landscape photography and had stumbled on Tumblr, becoming aware that it contained ‘pornography.’

A probation officer in court said a colleague had concluded the defendant’s risk had increased given that he had deceived her and the police and failed to tell them about his devices and the two social media accounts.

Magistrates remanded Galloway in custody until the day of his sentence at Carlisle Crown Court on August 18. They asked for a background Probation Service report.

In 2020, Carlisle Crown Court heard that Galloway’s offending came to light after a National Crime Agency probe into an IP address linked to a dark web forum associated with the exploitation of youngsters.

‪Describing Galloway’s illegal imagery as “disturbing and perverted”, the judge told him: “It's often observed in cases of this sort - and so it should be observed - these are not simply images that flicker into your room but they are depictions of the most vile, the most disgusting abuse that is perpetrated upon real individuals.

“The demand for these images drives that abuse. You are part of that cycle.”

The defendant's latest offences consisted of two breaches of his court order by creating the two online accounts with Flickr and Tumblr and one count involving him deleting his Tumblr internet history.