A CCTV salesman who performed a sex act in front of a 12-year-old girl on a webcam is to mount an appeal court bid for freedom.
Father-of-one Giovanni Abbondandolo, aged 34, from Heywood, who worked for a firm providing CCTV and security systems for schools in Warrington, posed as a 14-year-old in a chatroom and struck up an e-mail conversation with two children.
He was caught after the mother of one of the children discovered what he was doing and used her mobile phone to take his picture on the computer screen.
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Police later raided his home and found a stash of child porn images on his computer.
Abbondandolo was jailed for 15 months at Woolwich Crown Court after he admitted two charges of engaging in sexual activity in the presence of a child, eight of making an indecent photograph of a child and seven of possessing an indecent photograph of a child.
However, Mr Justice Foskett on Tuesday granted him permission to appeal against the sentence after his barrister, Helen Curtis, argued he should never have been jailed in the first place.
Miss Curtis pointed to his previous exemplary character and a recommendation in a pre-sentence report that he be given a community punishment.
The offences, she added, dated back to 2005 and Abbondandolo was still being held at high security Belmarsh Prison where he has been unable to speak to his wife of take visits from his mother.
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