Riddlesden sex offender failed to register phone and app

RIDDLESDEN SEX OFFENDER FAILED TO REGISTER PHONE AND APP

A SEX offender who failed to register a mobile phone and a social media app has avoided immediate custody.

Bradford Crown Court heard that Christopher Pennie was made subject to a five-year Sexual Harm Prevention Order (SHPO) in June 2024 after he asked a 13-year-old child for sexual images.

The child was, in fact, a police officer using a decoy profile.

Pennie was also handed a two-year community order at the same time.

In June this year, concerns were raised via care agencies that Pennie, 50, of Canal Road, Riddlesden, Keighley, was at risk of suicide and had gone missing.

Police officers called to his address found the phone and saw that the app, for secure messaging, had been installed.

There was also adult sexual content on the phone.

When Pennie returned home, he was arrested for breaching the SHPO by having the prohibited phone and app.

The court heard that the unregistered mobile phone was “a device that was clearly never intended to be found”.

He later pleaded guilty to two breaches of the SHPO.

He had four previous convictions for six offences, including historical dishonesty, a public order offence, and the attempted sexual communication with a child.

In mitigation, the court heard that no illegal material was found on the phone, which was not password-protected, when it was investigated, and that Pennie claimed to have forgotten to declare it.

There was “no evidence whatsoever” of attempted communication with children or searches for indecent images of children.

Pennie was said to be an alcoholic who drank every day to quieten voices he heard in his head and was abusing substances.

He was said to be co-operating with the probation service and complying with the community order.

Sentencing Pennie, Mrs Recorder Geraldine Kelly KC said he had “a very troubling attitude” towards supervision, that he was difficult to manage, and that he seemed to blame “everybody else except yourself” for breaching the order.

However, she said there were “signs of hope” for his rehabilitation despite his “entrenched” alcohol issues.

She sentenced him to 10 months’ imprisonment, suspended for 18 months, plus 10 rehabilitation activity requirement days and a six-month alcohol treatment requirement.

The existing SHPO was not extended and will expire in June 2029.

Recorder Kelly ordered the forfeiture and destruction of the mobile phone seized by police.