Marco Leyton, 27, has been sentenced to three years in custody for making and possessing indecent photographs of youths, possessing extreme pornography and perverting the course of justice.
Marco Leyton Estrada, photo added to article 14/01/2025 courtesy RFIP
The Senior Magistrate sentenced the Chilean national, and former leisure centre employee, for eight charges on 12 January.
During Leyton’s first appearance in November of last year before the Summary Court, he pleaded guilty to three charges of making indecent images of children, three charges of possessing indecent images of children, one charge of possessing extreme pornography depicting acts of bestiality and one charge of perverting the course of justice.
The images and videos were found on electronic devices owned by Leyton as well as on hard drives he was hiding for convicted sex offender Cristobal Quilodran.
The background of Leyton’s offending was outlined by Crown Prosecutor Stuart Walker, as being intertwined with the offending of Quilodran, a close friend of Leyton’s, and also a former leisure centre employee.
Mr Walker told the court Quilodran was arrested in December 2024 for inappropriate contact with a 14-year-old child and was subsequently jailed for grooming and sex offences including the making and possession of child abuse images.
When Quilodran was arrested, multiple messages between himself and the defendant, Leyton, were found on his electronic devices which led to Leyton being arrested, his home searched and electronic devices seized and sent to the UK for forensic examination.
Four hard drives belonging to Quilodran were found as part of the search on Leyton’s home and two mobile phones owned by Leyton were also seized.
On the mobile phones, hundreds of images of child abuse were found, mainly in the cache of the internet history, which shows Leyton viewed images and videos of children being subjected to horrendous sexual abuse.
Some images were found downloaded on the phones and Leyton was part of groups on the Telegram App which shared images of child abuse. Extreme pornographic images, namely one still image and four moving images depicting acts of bestiality were also found.
The hard drives belonging to Quilodran contained hundreds of images of child abuse.
Mr Walker told the court that Leyton was aware of Quilodran’s suspension from the leisure centre when he hid the hard drives for his friend. The prosecutor said forensic examination shows that Leyton accessed one of the hard drives on 1 December 2024 and the defendant was “well aware” of what was on them as it was the type of material he was accessing himself.
“He continued to conceal the evidence until March last year when he was arrested and did not volunteer the location of the devices,” said Mr Walker.
Leyton’s lawyer, Phil Axon, said his client had a close and toxic relationship with Quilodran and his extreme behaviour was a result of being manipulated and groomed by the older friend.
“He had suspicions about what was on the hard drives which were only confirmed when he viewed them. His blind loyalty and poor thinking skills led to his concealment,” said Mr Axon.
Mr Axon said his client does not seek to excuse his behaviour and is shamed by his behaviour.
When sentencing Senior Magistrate, Malcolm Simmons, said he took into account Leyton’s remorse, early guilty pleas, and his work with the emotional wellbeing service but does not accept Leyton was groomed.
He sentenced the defendant to 20 months in jail for the most extreme images and the other six custodial sentences ranging between 10 weeks to nine months will run concurrently to that.
A separate sentence of 16 months behind bars for perverting the course of justice was given to run consecutively for a total of three years in jail.
A sexual harm prevention order was also placed on Leyton for 10 years.
An order was made for the defendant’s devices to be seized and destroyed though, the destruction of one laptop will be decided by the police as to whether the images can be removed and the device returned to the owner.
The destruction of any devices won’t take place until the conclusion of another investigation involving voyeurism. That investigation was said to be nearing the point of charging by the Prosecution Service.
Both men, Quilodran and Leyton, were working around children in their positions at the Stanley Leisure Centre and the operator, the Falkland Islands Government, has been contacted and asked if any mitigation measures have been implemented regarding the safeguarding of children as a result of the convictions. The Falkland Islands Government was unable to provide a response within 26-hours.
