Claiming a text came from his dad, a sex offender, Christopher Wheeler Cornwall Paedophile, coming out of jail, who sought to pay a prostitute while living in a hostel in Cornwall. Christopher Wheeler had barely been accessible for four days and was under tight licence restrictions when police looked at a phone he had just purchased.
They discovered he had modified its settings to erase its internet history, which he was barred from doing by a Sexual Harm Prevention Order (SHPO) issued upon him following his detention the year before. Police believed he had already begun looking for images of child abuse on his new phone as a download of his prior device turned up 524 pictures or videos, and he had past convictions for viewing similar content.
Examining his new phone, the two police officers and the hostel manager he was staying with were in the middle when a text from a prostitute wondering why Wheeler had missed an appointment in Camborne an hour earlier emerged. He was detained for breaking the SHPO by wiping the phone’s internet history, which the order expressly forbade, not for trying to arrange sex with the woman.
Christopher Wheeler has been imprisoned twice for violating the law; last August, he received a 20-month term for trying to erase proof of his contact with children in chat rooms. Wheeler, 31, of East Hill, Tuckingmill, Camborne, accepted two charges of manufacturing and two breaches of the SHPO by downloading pornographic photos or films of children.
Judge David Evans of Exeter Crown Court imprisoned him for a year and four months. He informed him: “The police discovered the internet search history function turned off, negating the retention of your online activity.”
“You had been active online in the days following phone acquisition, but the degree of that cannot be known. That is the reason the sequence makes sense. The pre-sentence report reveals that you still deny a sexual interest in youngsters.
Ed Bailey, prosecuting, said Christopher Wheeler was freed from his former term on May 10 this year and visited his police offender management at the Meneghy House hostel on May 14 following his announcement he had purchased a new phone.
Claiming it was from his father, a text message arrived before Christopher Wheeler turned over the phone, and he managed to delete it before the police could view it. Police were looking at a phone belonging to a prostitute and questioning what was going on when a second text arrived.
Something else the SHPO forbade was using the phone to create a new Gmail account without informing the authorities. The photo violations resulted from a full download of the Samsung phone seized from Wheeler during his July 2023 SHPO breach, which resulted in his detention the following month.
There were 524 items total, 141 stills and 101 films in the most severe category, therefore presenting little children as young as two being raped.
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