September 2010

Paedophile paid girl, 13, to clean his Bristol flat

A paedophile banned from having any contact with children took on a 13-year-old girl to clean his flat and run errands, a court heard.

Joseph Dukes gave the girl a Nintendo game and sweets in payment, even though a conviction for downloading child porn meant he had been banned from having contact with children under 16.

The 50-year-old, who lived in a Bristol flat but is now homeless, pleaded guilty to breaching a Sexual Offences Prevention Order. (SOPO)

Jailing him for 15 months, Judge Michael Roach told him: “You have to realise that you’re not in a position to have contact with children under 16.

“No matter what you thought you were doing, ‘any contact’ means ‘any contact’.”

Michael Cullum, prosecuting, told Bristol Crown Court that Dukes had committed indecent assaults as a young man and, after a conviction for downloading indecent child photographs in 2005, was jailed for 15 months and handed a seven-year SOPO.

He said: “In early May the defendant was observed, by a woman, crossing the road with a young girl and entering his flat.

“The woman asked her daughter to speak to the girl and she said she was a relative.

“The girl seemed nervous and police surveillance was carried out on the defendant’s property.”

The court heard that, on June 16, CCTV showed the girl going in Dukes’ flat at 5.55am and re-emerging at 7.42am.

Police then tracked down the girl and talked to her, the court was told.

Mr Cullum said: “She said she knew the defendant through her mother and her mother had cleaned for the defendant.

“She started cleaning in April and had been to the flat six times. She cleaned CDs from a tower and the defendant gave her a Nintendo. She had gone to the flats when the defendant was asleep. It is accepted he was a night-shift baker.”

The youngster also told police she had gone to the flat after school with her friends when Dukes was not there.

Mr Cullum said: “She said she’d gone to get milk and she’d been given sweets as a result.”

When Dukes was arrested on June 21 he made no comment, the court heard.

Matthew Comer, defending, said: “Mr Dukes has served 95 days so far remanded in custody and he has known a custodial sentence is inevitable. There is no suggestion of sexual impropriety on his behalf.”

Mr Comer stressed there was a gap in his client’s offending between 1988 and 2005 and Dukes had been capable of holding down a job, having been a baker for 13 years.

He said: “He has no contact with family, he has no close friends and he describes himself as a lonely individual. He was simply seeking contact with people. He fully intends to move away from the area. He is without a home because of being remanded.”