Rumens, 28, who previously gave his address as Flat 7, Delancey Court, St Sampson’s, was jailed for two-and-a-half years after he admitted a total of eight charges.
One of these was sending indecent messages, while six related to making (downloading) indecent images of children and one charge of distributing indecent images of children.
Advocate Rory Calderwood, prosecuting, said that Rumens had used an adult chat area of the Chat Avenue site where he used the nickname ‘Barrydad’ to talk to another user named ‘Mumarie’.
During the conversation Rumens claimed that he was sexually frustrated and when ‘Mumarie’ asked ‘what are you into’ he had replied ‘babies’ and claimed to have acted indecently with an infant.
‘Mumarie’, a UK officer who was working undercover, had recorded the IP address attached to Barrydad’s account, and this was identified as belonging to Rumens’ home address.
Police went to his home where he was arrested and a PC tower, laptop and mobile phone were seized. After analysis of the devices, a total of 47 indecent images of children were recovered from the tower. They were in ‘thumbs.db’ files which had been created by the Windows operating system.
Advocate Calderwood said 40 of these indecent images were at the lowest end of the Sap scale (created by the Sentencing Advisory Panel for England and Wales) and were category one.
There were no images at the highest end of the scale, category five, but five images were category four, one was category two and another, category three.
The examination also showed that in the recent past some 133,000 files and folders had been deleted, of which only a small amount could be recovered due to Rumens using a software file shredder in an effort to remove all trace of the data.
During interview, Rumens said that he had not requested any images, and had deleted any he received.
He said he was not really sexually attracted to children, but was interested in talking about them. His story to ‘Mumarie’ about an indecent act with an infant was untrue, he said.
He later admitted that he had sent thumbnails of images to other users of chat rooms and a phone chat app, Kik.
Advocate Sam Maindonald, defending, said Rumens had co-operated fully with the police and had even volunteered for a second interview in order to give them additional information.
He could offer no real explanation for his actions, she said, and it was possible he would not understand it without counselling. He apologised to the court for his actions.
He had gone into chat sites to make friends when his girlfriend was not home or sleeping and had become more addicted after he lost his job.
It was through the use of these sites that he got involved in adult conversations.
It was only after his arrest that he realised how sinister these conversations had become.
There was no evidence that any child had been harmed by Rumens; ‘It was all a fantasy in his head,’ said Advocate Maindonald.
The sharing of the images had been the currency by which he was able to chat to other users and he had not taken any photographs himself.
She asked the court to consider that Rumens had had an unhappy childhood, although she accepted that others in a similar situation had not behaved as he had.
Rumens had no previous convictions, and she asked that he be treated as a person of previous good character.
In delivering the verdict of the court, Judge Russell Finch said that he, the Jurats and all officers and officials involved ‘had the very unpleasant task’ of looking at the images.
‘These are abhorrent offences to all right-thinking people,’ he said.
As well as sentencing Rumens to a total of 30 months in prison, he imposed an ‘extended sentence’ under which he would be subject to three years of close supervision on release.
