Woman discovered boyfriend was sex offender after granny spotted defendant picking up step-daughter from school
A sex offender’s girlfriend discovered his past after a grandmother spotted him collecting his step-daughter from primary school in Runcorn.
Peter Dillon, 29, of Grangeway was rumbled by the eagle-eyed granny as he picked up the youngster in November.
Back in 2010, Dillon had been sentenced to 20 months in prison and banned for five years at Warrington Crown Court from having unsupervised contact with children after he was convicted of inciting a teenage girl under the age of 16 to engage in sexual activity.
Jo Maxwell, prosecuting, told the court that a grandparent spotted Dillon picking up his partner’s daughter from primary school and then alerted staff that he was a ‘sex offender’. CCTV confirmed the sighting.
It transpired that he had been in a three-and-a-half year relationship with a woman with whom he had a young child.
The court heard she had not known the details of his past and that her daughter was four-years-old when their relationship started in 2011.
The couple are no longer together and the woman, whose knowledge of his past up to this point had been ‘limited’, had reported him to the police.
Miss Maxwell said that had the woman known about the past offence, she would have reported Dillon to the police and ended the relationship earlier.
Police discovered that Dillon had also breached his Sex Offences Prevention Order (SOPO) by moving house with his partner and not notifying officers.
David Rose, defending, said his client had not committed any offences since 2010 and had been trying to ‘live a normal life’.
He added that the probation service had recommended against imposing a custodial sentence and reported his ‘willingness to engage with the authorities as extremely encouraging’.
Recorder Of Chester Elgan Edwards, presiding, ordered another five-year SOPO and three-year community order requiring the defendant to complete the Northumbria Sex Offenders Programme.
Discussing Dillon’s SOPO breach, Judge Edwards said: “I want to make it quite clear that there’s no suggestion that you have done anything wrong sexually to anybody.
“If that were the suggestion, a different sentence would be appropriate.
“Your difficulty is that you have behaved badly in the past and you have been punished for that.”
Warning Dillon to comply with his latest orders, he said: “I will tell you what the court sees time and time again.
“They go to prison or get a suspended sentence, they do it again and go to prison, they do it again and go to prison for longer.
“It spirals out of control.
“You have got the chance to break that spiral with the help of your loving parents … you can be grateful to Mr Rose and your parents.
