Convicted paedophile John Pattison jailed for three years after police finds videos during routine check

A MOTHER-of-three discovered she had been in a relationship for a year with a convicted paedophile who watched videos of children being “tortured”, a court heard.

Former Scout leader John Pattison (48), of Campbell Road, Burton, had been staying with the woman over weekends, taken her children to the cinema, and looked after them when she was in hospital, Bournemouth Crown Court was told.

She immediately broke up with him after finding a court document in his trouser pockets while putting them in the wash.

Pattison has now been jailed for more than three years for offences involving indecent videos of children, said to have involved them being attached to electrodes.

He was previously convicted in 2018 having pleaded guilty to 10 charges of possessing indecent images of children.

In January 2020, a few months before meeting the woman, Dorset Police went to Pattison’s home as part of a routine check, said prosecutor Peter Pride.

They found a USB drive with videos of children, the court heard, including some being “tortured” with electrodes.

Some were rated as the most serious category A.

Mr Pride said the woman, whom the A&T is not naming, found out about Pattison’s offending after stumbling across the court document in March 2021.

“She discovered it accidentally in the defendant’s jeans when doing some washing,” he said.

She saw the words “indecent images”, Googled his name, and immediately ended the relationship, he said.

The woman contacted the police, telling officers Pattison had stayed at her home at least 60 times.

“I feel terribly let down by John,” she told the court. “He knew I had trust issues and I told him to never lie to me early in our relationship.

She told the court: “He has let me down and had I known about the sexual conviction I would never have let him near my children or formed a relationship with him.”

Pattison appeared for sentence having pleaded guilty to three counts of making indecent images of children, breaching a sexual harm prevention order and failing to comply with a notification requirement.

For his convictions in 2018, Pattison had received a five-year ban from having contact alone with children aged under 17 without permission from their parents or a police officer.

Defending, John Dyer said that after Pattison’s first convictions he had split from his wife but later reconciled with his daughters.

He noted Pattison had not been convicted of “contact” offences and had an predilection for pubescent girls only digitally and not in a real sense.

Pattison was very remorseful over his offending but had been enjoying a normal relationship with the woman, Mr Dyer said.

He stressed there were no allegations of inpropriety by Pattison against the woman’s children.

He had not engaged with probation and wanted to go to prison, Mr Dyer said, stressing Pattison’s “great benefit” to society when he was a paramedic.

The judge, Mr Recorder James Bromige, jailed Pattison for three years and one month.