Leeds nail bar manager caught with thousands of child abuse videos and made vile ‘dead body’ searches

Paedophile Trung Hoang, of Neath Gardens, Gipton, was caught after police raided his home and seized his devices. Officers found thousands of indecent images of children, including 40 still and 1,579 moving Category A images. There were 61 still and 833 moving images under Category B, and 40 still and 924 moving images under Category C.

The 26-year-old was also caught with an extreme pornographic image and a prohibited image of a child, Leeds Crown Court heard today. When interviewed by the police in January, he claimed he was sent a link on Facebook during the pandemic and clicked on it “out of curiosity”, which downloaded the images.

Prosecuting, Christopher Dunn said: “He said he was from Vietnam and didn’t know it was illegal to do this in the United Kingdom.”

During a second interview, police confronted Hoang about vile internet searches on his computer, such as ‘baby sex’ and ‘dead body sex’. The defendant told officers “he believed they were fake scenes, and not real”.

Hoang, who has no previous convictions, was charged with three offences of making indecent images of children, one count of possessing an extreme pornographic image and one count of possessing a prohibited image of a child. He pleaded guilty to all offences on the second day of a trial.

In mitigation, Hana Ahmed said that Hoang, who runs a nail bar, was “significantly remorseful for his actions”. She added: “He has been of good character and he was suffering with anxiety during Covid, he was in an isolated position.”

But this comment angered the judge, Recorder Anthony Hawks, who said: “So were other people, but they didn’t turn to child pornography.”

Hoang avoided immediate custody, with Judge Hawks suspending a 12-month prison sentence for two years. The defendant was also handed a sexual harm prevention order to last for 10 years.

Judge Hawks told Hoang: “You must understand that the making of these disgusting images causes catastrophic harm to young children and by downloading and viewing those images, you were contributing to the harm yourself.”