A serial sex offender who teamed up with a child rapist to create a sick collection of more than 13,000 child abuse images and videos has been warned he faces “an inevitable” prison sentence.
Judge Patrick Lynch KC told Stephen McCrossan that since it was the fourth time he had stood in a dock facing sex offences, there would be no other option but to jail him, “so I’ll remand you into custody now”.
On the day his trial was due to start last November, the 32-year-old, with an address on the Tandragee Road in Portadown, had a change of heart and admitted a total of 22 offences.
With tears streaming down his face, McCrossan admitted 16 counts of making indecent images of children, two of having extreme pornography and single counts of breaching a Sexual Offences Prevention Order (Sopo), distributing indecent images of children, supplying pregabalin and possession of the class C drug, all committed between July 6, 2018 and July 19, 2019.
Describing the case as “very serious”, prosecution lawyer Joseph Murphy told the court how, while staying at a hostel in Portadown, McCrossan became friendly with a man convicted of raping his daughter.
The men were photographed sitting side-by-side on a bench outside a Toymaster shop in the town in July 2019.
The rapist later claimed McCrossan had sold him a laptop but asked for it back, so he was returning it to him.
“He claimed that he never looked inside the bag and wasn’t aware what was on the laptop,” said Mr Murphy.
The rapist’s prison sentence was revoked as a result of the matter, and he was handed a four-year sentence for what was found on the laptop.
When the machine and another computer, which also belonged to McCrossan were examined, officers from the PSNI‘s cyber crime unit uncovered a total of 13,387 indecent images of children and 169 videos.
Of that, 287 images and 120 videos were assessed as being in Category A, which involves depictions of rape.
Mr Murphy said that McCrossan, who has appeared in court for similar offences in 2011, 2014 and 2017, had videos of a baby aged between 12 and 18 months and a girl aged seven to 10 being raped.
The examination of the laptop also showed a specialist browser had been installed which allowed him to trawl the dark web for child abuse images and download them.
When quizzed about breaching the Sopo and having the unauthorised laptop and mobile phone, McCrossan claimed he was being blackmailed by the rapist to download the images.
He also alleged the child sex attacker had “made threats to harm or kill his parents” if he refused to do his bidding, which included ordering prescription painkillers on the dark web.
But records showing when and where he had used the laptop exposed his story as a sham.
The lawyer said that by pleading guilty, McCrossan had accepted “that he wasn’t being blackmailed at all”.
He told the court it was clear that the two sex offenders had “formed a friendship during their stay in the hostel and made an arrangement to share indecent images”.
Since McCrossan’s “technological abilities” were better than the rapist’s, “he was able to use the browser to access the dark web and get these images”.
Judge Lynch adjourned the case until Friday for sentencing.
