A MAN who denies sharing child pornography has claimed a former friend may have been the suspect who downloaded it to his mobile phone.
Thomas Trump, 25, is “at a loss” as to how sexually charged conversations about children and child abuse images got onto his device.
During an interview with the police in 2018, he told an officer a former friend had shown him a stash of child pornography on their laptop and this was his first encounter with content of this severity.
Trump claimed this friend had access to his phone and desktop computer whenever he requested it, Chelmsford Crown Court heard.
“I let him sort of onto it every now and then to sort of do whatever as he didn’t have a phone at the time,” said the defendant.
When asked if his friend could have downloaded child pornography onto his phone, Trump said it was “definitely possible”.
Read what happened on day one of the trial: Colchester man 'at a loss' to explain child abuse chat and pictures on his phone
He added: “I don’t want to say it is him, I don’t want to think it is him.”
Trump told the interviewing police officer that he ran a Tumblr account which posted and reblogged pornography.
The court heard Trump would “basically reblog or post anything that revolved around pornography.”
“Some people have some really weird fetishes out there so [I would post] anything that people would enjoy,” Trump told the police.
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“There was plenty of stuff I really didn’t get on with, that didn’t personally interest me at all.
“There was some really disgusting stuff but, you know, some people do enjoy it so I just sort of reblogged it.”
Trump said he had never come across any child pornography while on Tumblr but admitted he had shared “lolicon” – animated images of people drawn to look young.
When asked if he had ever personally searched for indecent images of children, the defendant answered “no”.
He added: “I have been sent some pictures which I wasn’t sure about.”
Trump denies three counts of making indecent images of children, one count of possessing a prohibited image of a child and two counts of distributing indecent images of a child.
- The trial continues.
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