A SOUTH Cumbria sex offender has been jailed by a judge who concluded he had shown “contempt” for a court order he had breached seven times before.
Andrew Philip Smith, 61, was sentenced in 2014 for nine offences, and made subject to a five-year sexual harm prevention order (SOPO) containing a number of prohibitions.
One banned him from owning, using or possessing any electronic device capable of accessing the internet which did not have monitoring software fitted by police.
That made it Smith’s responsibility to make officers aware of any such devices.
In 2016, Smith was jailed for seven separate SOPO breaches, having repeatedly obstructed police who called at his Killington Drive home in Kendal to make device checks.
In January this year, Smith’s offender manager paid him a visit. No devices were visible and at no time did Smith disclose he had any that were internet capable.
But on June 11 police seized a laptop and tablet from his address which were not fitted with the required software.
Smith denied two SOPO breaches, but was convicted, unanimously, by a Carlisle Crown Court jury.
Prosecutor David Birrell said of Smith: “He has no respect for the SOPO whatsoever. He ignores it.”
The court also heard of Smith’s warped views that the legal age of sexual consent should be lowered, and incest decriminalised.
He was handed a two-year jail term this week by Judge David Potter. “I consider the breach of the SOPO which the jury have, on compelling evidence, convicted you of, to be particularly serious,” said Judge Potter.
“You have, I am satisfied, shown contempt of an order made for the protection of society and to prevent you from accessing material in support of your perverted beliefs.”
“You have shown no remorse for your actions,” the judge also noted, concluding: “You are a paedophile in the truest sense of the word.”