Southam sex offender given new suspended prison sentence

A Southam man who had escaped being jailed for downloading indecent images of children breached a court order by failing to tell his offender manager that he had a computer tablet.
Christopher BrownChristopher Brown
Christopher Brown

But despite the fact that that put Christopher Brown in breach of a suspended sentence, a judge at Warwick Crown Court heard that otherwise he had complied well with the order.

Brown, 30, of Ploughman’s Holt, had pleaded guilty to failing to disclose an item to his offender manager, in breach of a sexual harm prevention order.

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In addition, he admitted that put him in breach of a suspended prison sentence he had been given in June 2017 for three offences of possessing indecent images of children.

Christopher BrownChristopher Brown
Christopher Brown

Judge Peter Cooke imposed a new 18-week prison sentence suspended for 12 months, with a rehabilitation activity, fined him £200 and ordered him to do 120 hours of unpaid work.

Prosecutor Tim Sapwell explained that under a sexual harm prevention order imposed at that time, Brown was obliged to notify his offender manager of any device he had which was capable of internet connection and to make it available for examination.

When officers went to his home on April 10 and told him what they were looking for, Brown denied having any items which had not been disclosed.

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But they carried out a search, and in a cupboard under the stairs they found the tablet.

Brown said it had been a Christmas gift from his father, and by the time he got round to thinking about disclosing it, he had thought it was too later to do so.

Mr Sapwell said that Brown had been convicted of exposure in 2016, when he had exposed himself to women passing his home, for which he had been given a ten-week suspended sentence.

Then in June 2017 he was given a 12-month suspended sentence for having after hundreds of indecent images of girls as young as five on his phone.

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He had pleaded guilty to those matters on the basis that he had not set out to search for the material, but had started receiving it through a social media group which shared adult porn.

The court heard that, apart from his failure to disclose the tablet, Brown had been engaging well with the suspended sentence order.

As a result, the Probation Service was willing to continue working with him, and had recommended that he be ordered to carry out unpaid work as a punishment.

And Judge Cooke commented: “Activating it now would be counter-productive.”

He told Brown: “I take the view, having read the progress report on you, that it would be unjust to activate your suspended sentence order.”