September 2012

Web paedophile Robert Jeffrey allowed back online to find a job

AN internet paedophile, who was jailed five years ago for grooming a teenage girl, has been told by a judge that he can start using the web again.

Since he was sentenced in 2007, Robert Jeffrey has been subject to a strict sexual offences prevention order banning him from accessing the internet.

But Jeffrey, of Archway Gardens, Stroud, successfully applied to Recorder Stephen Hall to have limited use of the internet to help him search for work.

Jeffrey’s solicitor Sabhia Pathan told Gloucester Crown Court: “Society and technology have clearly changed significantly in the last five years.

“His primary need for a change in the sexual offences prevention order is for him to access the internet legitimately to search for work.”

There was no opposition from the prosecution to the order being varied so that Jeffrey can use the internet – as long as he does not have any contact with any girl under 18.

The new order requires him to use only computers which have the capacity to retain and display the history of internet usage – and to make his equipment available for inspection by the police.

He is not allowed to delete anything from his computer or to use it to contact any female he believes is under 18. He must not possess any device for storing digital pictures unless he also makes it available for police inspection.

And he is not to have any unsupervised personal contact with girls under 18 except “inadvertently in daily life” or with the permission or parents or guardians who have been informed of his criminal record.

Jeffrey first appeared at Gloucester Crown Court in 2005 when he escaped with a community order for trying to “groom” a 16-year-old girl who had set a “honey trap” for him by pretending to be just 13 years old.

She lured him into admitting his illicit sexual motives and desires – then called the police.

However, Jeffrey repeatedly failed to abide by the terms of his community order and continued his efforts to make contact with young girls via the internet, the court was told in 2007.

At that hearing, Judge Jamie Tabor QC revoked the community order and jailed Jeffrey for three years, telling him he was “a determined and unreformed sex offender with a predatory attitude to young women”.