A MAN who denies engaging in sexually charged conversations about children and sharing child abuse images told police he was “at a loss” as to how the chat logs got onto his mobile phone.

Thomas Trump, 25, “couldn’t explain” to detectives why the compromising chats appeared on his phone following his arrest in 2018.

Police discovered a user of the phone had used the Kik messenger app to contact two people, before engaging in a discussion about performing a sex act on a child and sharing indecent images of a child.

But under questioning, Trump denied even knowing the app was installed on his phone.

Opening a trial before a jury at Chelmsford Crown Court, prosecutor Edward Renvoize said: “It was to transpire, as police did some further investigation, that in fact the email he has used to register the Kik application came back to him.

“It was in his emails.”

Gazette: A trial continues at Chelmsford Crown CourtA trial continues at Chelmsford Crown Court (Image: Newsquest)

He added: “The defendant couldn’t explain it, but he denied he had been the person conversing with either [user] and was at a loss to explain how the conversations came to be on his phone.”

The court heard a police investigation included further digging into Trump’s phone use, which established “beyond a shadow of a doubt” he was the user of the phone.

'He is the only explicable user of the phone'

Mr Renvoize said: “We’ll hear there had been some housing problems and that Mr Trump had moved out of the house he shared with others and had moved back to his parents’ home address.

“There are messages between Mr Trump and his girlfriend which established Mr Trump was more or less living on the sofa at his parents and that occurred in early August of 2018.

“The messages we are concerned with are of August 24 and 25 of 2018.

“On August 24 and 25, the user of Mr Trump’s telephone is making various calls, he is also making various texts, as well as at the same time using his phone to contact other individuals.

“What we can see is a pattern of contact which is only explicable by the operator of the telephone being Mr Trump.”

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The explicit chat logs were discovered after police raided Trump’s home address in November 2018.

They found several indecent images of children at Category A, B and C on his phone. The categories denote the severity of the images, with Category A typically involving depictions of child sexual abuse.

Also found on the phone was a cartoon image depicting the sexual abuse of a child.

Trump, of De Grey Road, Colchester, 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.

'You, the jury, will need to decide'

Mr Renvoize told the jury the “issue” in the case would be whether the defendant was responsible for downloading the images onto his phone, whether he knew they were there and whether he shared the images over Kik.

He added: “Or whether it was another individual who had in essence managed to hack his phone and send images and indeed engage in sexual chat with these other individuals.”

  • The trial, which is expected to last three days, continues.