A sex offender paid the price for breaching a court order when he failed to inform police he owned an iPad computer, a court heard.

Samuel Kettell was made subject of a Sexual Harm Prevention Order (SHPO) when he received a 16-month suspended prison sentence for downloading and distributing indecent images of children, at Durham Crown Court on March 29.

Under the terms of the ten-year order he had to notify police of any device capable of accessing the internet and make it available for inspection of its internet ‘history’.

When police went to his home address on a monitoring visit on June 7 he handed the officers an iPhone but denied having any other device.

Caroline McGurk, prosecuting, told the court that a search of his home led to the recovery of the iPad, which he had not declared having on previous police monitoring visits, on April 5 and May 18.

Kettell claimed he thought it was lost and had spent weeks searching for it, to no avail.

Miss McGurk said it had been used to access the internet, but any material obtained had been deleted, which was also a breach of the SHPO.

Kettell claimed he had used it to access music on YouTube and an adult pornography site.

A probation report prepared for the court stated that Kettell’s perceived risk of further similar offending is considered “high”, but “manageable” within the community.

Kate Barnes, for Kettell said the terms of the community element of the order imposed when her client was sentenced in late March had not, “had time to bite.”

She said Kettell has had problems over his engagement with mental health services, but she urged Judge Ray Singh to allow him time to improve his response to the orders passed as part of the suspended sentence, in March.

The 22-year-old defendant, of Hale Rise, Peterlee, admitted breaching the SHPO.

Read more: Teenager concealed indecent child images, hiding some in music app

Judge Singh said at the time he came before the court earlier this year it was thought there was work which the Probation Service could do to help the defendant address his offending.

“It was thought you were a person who could abide by a court order and comply.

“You took that conscious decision to ignore the terms of the SHPO that was considered necessary to prevent the risk of harm, particularly to young children.

“You failed to disclose there was an iPad you had and, you had been deleting the internet history.

“If the use of that ipad was for itunes and legitimate pornography you would have been cautioned, but there can only be one reason you put the use of that computer to, and that would be for illegitimate use.”

Judge Singh said Kettell had paid mere “lip service” to the court order and he activated eight months of the suspended sentence, adding four months for the breach, making a total 12-month prison sentence.

He also made a deprivation order for the offending iPad.

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