August 2016

Hereford man jailed for online grooming of three girls

A man has been jailed for more than two years for sexually grooming three schoolgirls online.

Ryan Saville, 25, posed as an 18-year-old giving a false identity as he bullied the girls aged 13, 14 and 15 into sending him naked selfies of themselves.

He sent them to a friend and threatened the youngsters that he would send the pictures to their family and friends.

Saville, of Escley Drive, was eventually arrested after his phone was traced to his home in Hereford.

Prosecutor Paul Newcombe told Teesside Crown Court that Saville, who had a girlfriend, had contacted the girls by social media sites Facebook and KIK.

He contacted a 13-year-old girl, whose age was clearly visible on the apps, and increasingly pressurised her to send a naked photo from the waist down, which she did.

A 15-year-old girl had sent a topless selfie to a friend.

Saville contacted her on Facebook saying he had the image and that they would go viral unless she sent him full-body pictures of herself.

Mr Newcombe said a 14-year-old girl was contacted by Saville between December 1 and December 31, 2014 asking for topless photographs.

He added: “She eventually gave in, sending him the requested topless selfie.

“She said: ‘He must have sent me 10 messages asking me to send those pics.’

“He persisted, threatening to post sexual rumours about her on the net. Eventually he shared the same photo with a friend.

“Internet traces on his phone led to his home in Hereford.”

Louise Harrison, defending, said: “He does not want to justify his behaviour.

“Clearly now he recognises and had very soon recognised that it is certainly not a victimless group of offences and that those young girls would be stressed by what he was doing. He has no relevant offending previously.”

Miss Harrison said at the time his life was going nowhere.

Judge Howard Crowson told Saville: “You posed as an 18-year-old man to represent yourself as a teenager to teenage girls and you managed to persuade by bullying and threats three teenage girls to send you, one of them only 13-years-old, to send you indecent images of themselves.

“I take the view that the age of the youngest girl together with the threats are aggravating features.

“There was a very worrying pattern of behaviour by you.”

Saville was jailed for 26 months, given a Sexual Harm Prevention Order banning him for 10 years from contact with girls under 16 and restricting his use of the internet, and he was ordered to register as a sex offender for 10 years.

He pleaded guilty to nine charges of causing a child to engage in sexual activity, two of causing a child to watch a sexual act, and two of distributing indecent photographs between December 1, 2013 and February 9, 2014.

November 2009

Hereford postman, Norman Vinson, jailed for 16 years for rape of girl, 10

A POSTMAN has been jailed for 16 years for raping and sexually assaulting a young girl.

Norman Vinson, of Belvoir Court, Belmont, Hereford, abused the 10-year-old in her own home without others in the house knowing.

The 56-year-old pleaded guilty at Hereford Crown Court to seven counts of raping or sexually assaulting a child. He also admitted seven counts of possessing indecent images of children.

The court was told that his victim wished she could wipe the ordeal from her memory.

“Sometimes I feel like I want to give up on being me and be in my own little world,” the victim was reported to have said.

James Dunstan, prosecuting, said on the first occasion in 2006 the girl, then aged 10, “freaked out” when she was attacked in a playroom but did not think anyone would believe her if she spoke out. The abuse continued but, in June 2007, her friends told their teachers and Vinson was arrested.

Mr Dunstan said, despite a previous conviction for indecently assaulting two girls in 1981, Vinson made “a full denial” to police.

Bruce Gray, defending, said Vinson was “genuinely ashamed” of what he had done and, as a consequence, had difficulty talking about it with others. He said this was also why Vinson failed to admit his guilt at an earlier stage, but in doing so he had at least saved the girl from giving evidence.

“But nothing I can say can reduce the shockingly serious nature of these offences and he wouldn’t want me to,” Mr Gray said.

Judge Amjad Nawaz said Vinson posed a serious risk to children and ordered checks to be made on him for the rest of his life.

Vinson will be considered for release in eight years and is the subject of a sexual offences prevention order that forbids him from contacting or working with children forever.

An Another Hereford man was jailed by Judge Nawaz after admitting a series of child sex offences.

David Worth, of Bailey Brook Road, Redhill, pleaded guilty to 20 offences when he appeared at Hereford Crown Court on Tuesday and was sent to prison for 10 years.

The judge told the 41-year-old that on his release he would be disqualified from working with children and placed on a sexual offences prevention programme.

March 2015

“Most wanted” missing sex offender arrested in Leominster

A 19-year-old sex offender missing since being released from youth custody has been arrested in Leominster.

Police acting on a tip-off raided a house on the town’s Ridgemoor estate.

A taser and a dog were used.

Police took the rare step of going public with Samuel Walker’s details saying he should not be approached.

The information that led to the arrest was received within an hour.

Walker was being hunted across the county by police, but inquiries focused on Leominster where he has strong links and was last seen.

Despite his age, Walker has a lengthy criminal record, much of it for violence.

He is currently on the Sex Offenders Register for seven years.

In June last year, Walker was freed having served part of a custodial sentence for a sex attack on a girl in Leominster.

A month later he was back inside for affray.

By December, Walker was behind bars again for breaching the notification requirements of his Sexual Offences Prevention Order.

In January, Walker was released from youth custody to an address in Ledbury that he never arrived at.

The hunt for Walker was led by Herefordshire CID and the county’s sex offender management unit. His details and picture were passed on to all patrol officers.

Until this afternoon’s arrest, the last reported sighting of Walker was in Leominster town centre at around 7pm last Friday (March 6).

Detectives believed Walker to be lying low “sofa surfing” at addresses in the town.

February 2017

Registered sex offender stayed in same house as child

A REGISTERED sex offender has had to move out of the county after breaching his restraining order by staying in the same property as a five-year-old girl on three occasions.

Alan John Woodward, 52, was living in Leominster when he breached clauses that forbid him from entering or staying in a property where a child was present

Hereford Magistrates, who heard that no harm was caused to the child, were told last week that Woodward had started a new relationship with a mother and stayed at her property overnight along with her daughter during the Christmas period.

His partner eventually ended their relationship after finding details of his previous conviction on the internet.

Adrian Jones, prosecuting, said that Woodward refused to disclose his new partner’s name to his offending manager.

“Woodward told his offending manager that he had made full disclosure to the woman and that she wanted to continue the relationship,” said Mr Jones

“He was reminded of the terms of the order and consequences of a breach. He didn’t give the manager the details of the lady the authority required to investigate further.”

Authorities eventually established who she was and after subsequent enquiries found an address.

The woman said she had started a relationship with him in October and they had been at the early stages of a relationship.

“She said on three occasions he stayed with her and her home address when her daughter was present,” added Mr Jones

“There was no suggestion he acted in an inappropriate manner. She carried out a Google search and found details about him and finished with him when she found the true situation.

“In interview the only explanation that he put forward is that he was head over heels in love with the lady in question.

Magistrates ordered Woodward to pay a £265 fine, £30 victim surcharge and £185 costs.

April 2019

Hereford sex offender is jailed

A convicted paedophile from Hereford who twice groped an underage girl and told her she had a ‘smoking hot’ body is now behind bars.

Simon Boon admitted two counts of sexual activity with a 15-year-old girl and breach of a sexual harm prevention order designed to protect children.

The 39-year-old former delivery driver of Nicholson Court, Bobblestock, had already pleaded guilty to the offences when he was sentenced at Worcester Crown Court last week.

The offences took place in August last year when Boon was already undergoing community group work to address his sexual interest in children.

Siobhan Collins, prosecuting, said the victim had shown ‘no interest in him’ and had become concerned about the defendant’s behaviour towards her, including an attempt to give her £90 ‘spending money’.

The court heard how Boon saw the girl wearing a cropped shirt and ‘teased her about putting on weight’ on holiday before he touched her stomach.

Miss Collins said: “He put his arms around her and leaned in and she told him ‘no’.”

The girl later told her family what Boon had done and he was confronted by her father who told him to ‘stay away from her’.

Boon also approached a friend of the girl and said he needed to apologise to her.

“He said before her holiday she had been smoking hot with abs then she had come back and put on weight” said Miss Collins.

Boon also attached a note to the front of her house last September but this was intercepted by the girl’s mother who took it to the police.

“He said he was sorry for what he had said and done, describing his actions as rude and unfair. He said he should be publicly flogged for his disgusting displays” said Miss Collins.

His contact with the girl was in breach of a sexual harm prevention order which was made on October 14, 2016 which prohibited him from having contact with a child under 16. He was also subject to a three year community order made on September 22, 2016 for making indecent images of children and for possession of extreme pornography.

Boon was arrested at his home on September 7 last year for touching the girl. Cannabis was also seized.

The defendant was taken to Hereford Police Station where he told officers he knew she was only 15.

Miss Collins added: “In terms of the offence he said he had walked his fingers across her stomach twice in a moment of madness and then went to give her a hug.”

Judge Jim Tindal said: “You are a man now approaching middle age and from everything I have read it would appear that you have led an isolated existence.

“You lead a solitary life and you have found yourself over the last few years entering what is quite a dark world.”

He added: “In my judgement it was certainly a deliberate breach, arguably a persistent or very serious bridge.”

The judge gave him full credit for his guilty plea.

However, he said the offences were committed while Boon was being supported by probation to address ‘precisely this sort of incident’ and this meant that his actions ‘can only be considered as an escalation in your offending’.

The judge jailed him for 16 months and extended the sexual harm prevention order to run for 10 years. The notification requirements will also apply for 10 years.

September 2016

Man searched for indecent images of children on the internet

A MAN used search engines to find indecent photographs of children using the key words ‘jailbait and very young girls’.

Simon Boon, 36, of West Street, Leominster, pleaded guilty to the possession of 161 indecent images of children and the possession of an extreme pornographic video.

Adrian Jones, prosecuting at Hereford Magistrates Court said that the video concerned was ‘particularly unpleasant’ and included the damage of a female’s private parts.

The images and video was found on Boon’s Sony Xperia mobile phone which he had taken to be repaired.

Four days later he rang the repairman asking his if he had carried out the repairs.

“After being prompted the repairman started working on the phone using the passcodes supplied by Boon,” said Mr Jones.

“When he does this he finds images of young girls and immediately contacts the police.

“Boon was interviewed about the matter and accepted that the device was his. He said that he had bought the phone from Cash Generators between six and eight weeks earlier.”

Boon said that he used the device to scour the internet for pornography and videos from a number of websites.

He would do this at his mother’s address while he was visiting her at weekends as she had Wifi.

“He said that he had a preference to punishment pornography,” added Mr Jones.

“A detailed examination of his phone found the key words ‘very young girls’ and ‘jailbait’ had been put into search engines along with searches of this type of nature.

“When asked why he downloaded this material Boon said he didn’t know. He admitted seeing images of children while he was in New Zealand and said it made his feel uncomfortable.

“He admitted downloading these media files for his own use. He knows it is wrong to look at these images and knows they are real people.”

Magistrates ordered for a full pre-sentence probation report to be carried out considering all options and didn’t rule out the case being sent to the crown court for sentencing

The case was adjourned until next month.