A PAEDOPHILE who distributed sickening indecent videos of children aged as young as five has been jailed.

Fartam Bassiri, of Birchwood, was handed 20 months behind bars at Liverpool Crown Court this morning, Tuesday.

The court heard that the 46-year-old’s home on Keyes Close was raided by police in December 2018.

Bassiri was present at the address and was arrested, with several phones and a laptop seized from the property.

On these devices, officers discovered 11 category A indecent images – depicting the most serious level of abuse – including eight videos.

A further 27 category B images, including two videos, and one category C image were found.

This equipment also contained two extreme pornographic images and six such videos – mostly involving animals, but one of which showed a woman being injured with pins.

The married man and dad to three young children also distributed indecent videos over the internet on three occasions.

In July, he sent a doctor in Germany a clip involving two 12-year-old girls.

Then, in October 2018, he shared a video of a woman abusing a boy estimated to be aged between five and seven with a friend in Georgia.

Only days before the search warrant was executed at his house, he had distributed a sickening video of two boys aged eight and 12.

Bassiri, who is also known as Fartam Bassir-Mahallati, claimed that he had been sending this material to ‘show disgust’ at their contents and told police that he did not have a sexual interest in children.

But the doctor responded with a sickening reply – which was too graphic to publish – which suggested otherwise, and the prosecution alleged that he had been trading indecent images with others.

The Iranian asylum seeker – who was assisted in court by an interpreter and has no previous convictions – admitted distributing indecent images, downloading incident images, possession of indecent images and possession of extreme pornographic images during an earlier hearing.

Sentencing, judge David Swinnerton said: “You had something like 30 indecent images of children – 11 of these were category A, the most serious level of indecent images.

“Most seriously, you distributed three category A videos.

“I don’t think you’ve been entirely frank in your reasons for looking at and sharing this material.

“You say that you shared them to show your disgust, but the response you got wasn’t one of disgust – you were sharing videos with somebody who expressed enjoyment in that sort of indecent imagery of children.

“You know that this material and the sharing of it is deeply wrong.

“I have to decide whether I can properly suspend any sentence.

“It’s said that the future risk you pose is low, but you are not willing to face up to why you were looking at and distributing these images.

“I also have to ask myself whether the only proper sentence is one of immediate imprisonment – I take the view that it is.

“Those that distribute category A images of children can expect to go to prison.”

Bassiri, who is now living separately from his wife of 15 years as a result of his offending, will serve half of his sentence in custody before being released on licence.

He attempted to plead with the judge after learning his fate, but was ultimately led into custody.

The pharmaceuticals company delivery driver was also told to sign the sex offenders register for 10 years and handed a 10-year sexual harm prevention order.

Judge Swinnerton ordered the forfeiture and destruction of the seized devices.

Cheshire Police have refused to release a custody picture of Bassiri.