Once he tried to obscure his online search history, a convicted sex offender, Gary Crowhurst west Hull Paedophile, with a long-standing interest in obscene photographs of children fell foul of the police once more.
Gary Crowhurst disobeyed a court order prohibiting him from deleting his internet usage and continued regardless. Hull Crown Court heard he was caught out after forgetting police had installed tracking software on his phone.
Gary Crowhurst, 40, of Park Avenue, off Princes Avenue, west Hull, accepted two offences of breaking a 10-year sexual harm prevention order between July 13, 2022.
Prosecutors Jazmine Lee claimed that after Gary Crowhurst was detained for possessing obscene photographs of children, Hull Crown Court decided on a sexual harm prevention order in November 2017.
He eventually confirmed installing file-sharing software that downloaded the photographs, albeit first denying the charge. There were 23 photographs in the most serious Category A, eight in Category B and one in Category C, as well as three extreme pornography images.
Gary Crowhurst installed a virtual video downloader in September 2022 but was barred from downloading and using one under the conditions of the sexual harm prevention order. Police set up monitoring devices on his phone and picked up this action.
He confirmed installing the program during a police interrogation but said he had forgotten monitoring equipment was in place. Gary Crowhurst also forbade changing or erasing his online search history. He said he downloaded pornographic pornography using an app and admitted it.
“Nothing suggests any child content,” Miss Lee remarked. Gary Crowhurst has six past convictions, including one for making offensive photographs of children in January 2015. For such offences and the sexual harm prevention order was issued then, he had been imprisoned in 2017 for twenty months.
Similar offences occurred in March 2014.
Michael Forrest, mitigating, said that Gary Crowhurst had followed the provisions of the sexual harm prevention order since the most recent offences in 2022.
Gary Crowhurst had few earlier convictions but once spent a brief jail term for comparable offences. His internet usage was part of a crime pattern he did not disclose to the authorities.
“He can be managed in the community,” Mr. Forrest remarked. Gary Crowhurst was eager to seize a road that had not before been open to him.
Mr Forrest said, “He has to face up to the reality that he can’t be downloading these images, and if he does, he needs to seek help.”
Gary Crowhurst received 20 days’ rehabilitation and an eight-month suspended prison term.
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