December 2016

Jail for pervert pensioner who kept deleting his internet search history

A pensioner who repeatedly defied an order not to delete his internet search history has been jailed.

John Pilkington was handed a sexual harm prevention order in March 2015 after he was convicted of three counts of making indecent images of children.

Under its terms the 78-year-old, of Long Eaton, is not allowed to use any “clean up” software or physically remove evidence of what he has been searching for.

But Derby Crown Court heard how in June last year he broke the order for the first time and did the same again in November last year.

The court heard he had done it for a third time and has now been handed a nine-month jail term.

Judge Jonathan Bennett said: “I am very conscious of the fact that you are a 78-year-old man and I am also aware that you are not (legally) represented in the court today and that is your choice.

“You accept that police officers came to your house, as they are entitled to do, to speak to you about your computer. You said to them you had deleted your internet history and they asked you to show them, which you did.

“The internet search history only went back three days and it is quite clear you had deleted it as you are forbidden from doing by this order.

“You said you thought this only applied to your old computer and not your new one.

“But this has happened on three occasions now and you also had ‘clean up’ software on your computer which the order also forbids. You know full well what is in that order and you repeatedly breach it.”

Siward James-Moore, prosecuting, said an officer went to Pilkington’s address, in Rush Leys, Long Eaton, on November 21.

He said when the officer asked to see his computer he told her he had recently deleted the search history.

Mr James-Moore said: “He said to the officer ‘I have been deleting the internet history to keep the hard drive clear’. She looked at the computer and saw that in the three days there was some history the defendant had been putting in sexual search terms.”

Speaking from the dock, Pilkington told the hearing: “The computer I had was a new one, not my old one, I thought I was only not allowed to delete the history from the old one.

“What I am going to do now is remove my computer altogether and not have one. I am sorry about this, I certainly will not do anything like this again.

“The computers I have will be destroyed.”

January 2016

Derbyshire sex offender is jailed for deleting internet search history – again

A CONVICTED sex offender breached a court order just weeks after being released from prison.

John Pilkington, 77, was originally in court for “sexual matters” in the 1980s and 1990s, Derby Crown Court was told.

In March last year, he was given a community order for possessing indecent images of children.

He was told he must obey a sexual harm prevention order, which included not possessing any software that could delete his internet search history.

Pilkington, of Rush Leys, Long Eaton, first breached the order in June by installing a “cleaner” on his computer, the court was told. He was given a 28-day prison sentence and released on October 22.

But, when police went to the defendant’s home on November 25, they discovered he had installed another “cleaner” on his computer.

Jailing Pilkington for four months, Judge Nirmal Shant QC said: “You cleaned your computer, ensuring that nobody was then able to follow the history of what you had been searching.

“It came shortly on the heels of having served 28 days for exactly the same thing.”

Pilkington admitted breaching a sexual harm prevention order.

Simon Stevens, in mitigation, said Pilkington had told him that he had “poor memory” and sometimes “poor comprehension”.

However, Judge Shant said she did not accept this was the case.

She said: “I take the view it was a deliberate breach. You knew exactly what you were doing.

“And you must understand the way the court enforces such orders is by taking any breach very seriously indeed.”

Mr Stevens told the courts that the Community Sex Offender Group Work Programme Pilkington had been ordered to attend in March last year had not yet begun and so his client had not yet had the benefit of any of the help.

Judge Shant instructed that, when Pilkington was released from prison, he would continue on the community order.