A PERVERT filmed a 10-year-old girl cartwheeling before superimposing her face on sexual images from his sick pornography collection, a court heard.

Care worker Andrew Montgomery, of Hazelwood Avenue, Bolton, was caught after police officers in New Zealand tipped off their English counterparts that the 38-year-old was storing files that depicted sexual abuse of children.

At Bolton Crown Court, Brian Berlyne, prosecuting, said that on May 29, 2020, police officers searched Montgomery’s home after which he was arrested at the care home where he worked and his phone seized.

After examining his phone, officers found 43 of the most serious category A indecent images of children, 56 of category B and 54 of category C.

All the images and videos had been downloaded between March last year and May this year and included images of children as young as two-years-old.

They also found 38 images of extreme pornography involving horses and dogs.

On December 18, 2019, Montgomery uploaded a category B and category C indecent image of a girl aged around 10-years-old to Snapchat which became publicly available.

Officers found an application on his phone which could copy and paste faces between different images and he had superimposed a picture of a child on to a category C image.

Seventeen images of the same girl were found on his phone, all of which were either taken by Montgomery or he had sourced from social media sites.

One video showed the girl cartwheeling which Montgomery admitted filming himself, but he denied having interest in her or children generally.

Suzanne Hargreaves, defending, said Montgomery, who pleaded guilty to six offences and has no previous convictions, has been married for five years and has a child and two adult step children.

Ms Hargreaves said he worked as a carer with elderly people and during the coronavirus pandemic had volunteered at a local hospital.

“He (Montgomery) tells me he has been completely honest with his family and has told them about the offences,” she said. “All of the family are utterly devastated but remain supportive. He is wracked with guilt and has demonstrated regret and remorse.”

Sentencing a tearful Montgomery to 10 months in prison, suspended for 18 months, Judge Graeme Smith also ordered him to carry out 120 hours of unpaid work and take part in a 30 days of rehabilitation activities.

He is subject to a sexual harm prevention order and was placed on the sex offenders’ register for 10 years.

“The children whose images you have been viewing are real children, somewhere in the world who are suffering abuse,” Judge Smith told him. “It goes on because there are people willing to view it.”