'Depraved' County Durham paedophile who had 15,000 vile images convicted over historic sex abuse of teenager
Russell Duncan Frederick Weatherley faces jail after a jury found him guilty of 11 child sex offences
by Sam Volpe · ChronicleLiveA vile paedophile who was found with 15,000 indecent images of children has now been convicted of sexually assaulting a teenager, too.
Russell Duncan Frederick Weatherley, of Parkwood Avenue, Bearpark, was arrested in 2022 after officers discovered thousands of horrific child abuse images on his phone. Among those images, were photographs of a teenager who Weatherley had assaulted.
Officers were able to trace the victim and confirm she had been abused by Weatherley. A jury at Durham Crown Court found Weatherley guilty of six charges of sexual activity with a child and five charges of inciting a child to engage in sexual activity and he has now been remanded in custody to face sentencing at the same court on November 18.
Weatherley, 62, had denied the offences. However after initially denying 18 charges of making indecent images of children, he changed his plea and admitted that offence - along with one charge of possessing an extreme pornographic image involving an animal.
Detective Constable Liam Padget, of the Durham Constabulary's online child abuse investigation team, said: “Weatherley took advantage of a vulnerable girl and portrayed himself as a knight in shining armour, while all the time he was in fact sexually abusing her.
"Weatherley represents a real danger to children and thought he had got away with his crimes but his shameful past has finally caught up with him."
The detective added: "Not only has Weatherley possessed massive amounts of the most depraved child abuse material, we now know he grotesquely abused the victim, and recorded the abuse. This has weighed heavily on the victim for many years who has been so courageous in helping with the investigation and we hope can now see justice at last.
“If you have been a victim of sexual assault we would urge you to come forward no matter how much time has passed.”
Join our WhatsApp communities
ChronicleLive is now on WhatsApp and we want you to join our communities.
We have a number of communities to join, so you can choose which one you want to be part of and we'll send you the latest news direct to your phone. You could even join them all!
To join you need to have WhatsApp on your device. All you need to do is choose which community you want to join, click on the link and press 'join community'.
No one will be able to see who is signed up and no one can send messages except the ChronicleLive team.
We also treat our community members to special offers, promotions, and adverts from us and our partners.
If you don't like our community, you can check out any time you like. To leave our community click on the name at the top of your screen and choose 'exit group'.
If you’re curious, you can read our privacy notice.
Join the ChronicleLive Breaking News and Top Stories community
Join our Court & Crime community
Join the Things to do in Newcastle and the North East community
Join our Northumberland community
Join our County Durham community
Join our Great North Run community