September 2018 Family’s bid to stop York sex offender A family is blocking a sex offender’s access to money and the internet as they try and keep him out of jail. York Crown Court heard that the probation service, police supervision and a court order have failed to prevent Mathew Denison committing more sex crimes. Geraldine Kelly, prosecuting, said Denison installed special software on one mobile phone to conceal his internet activities – and when police confiscated that phone, got another, installed the same software and downloaded more indecent images. The judge read medical reports about Mathew Denison’s mild to moderate autism. He suspended a 13-month prison sentence for two years on condition Denison attends a rehabilitation project for 31 days. He also made a lifelong sexual harm prevention order enabling police to supervise any access Denison had to the internet and put him on the sex offenders’ register for 10 years. Mathew Denison, 52, of St Aelred’s Close, Fifth Avenue, Tang Hall, had been given an earlier sexual harm prevention order (SHPO) and a community order with probation supervision when he was convicted of downloading indecent images of children in May 2016. On his return to York Crown Court in July, he pleaded guilty to three charges of downloading indecent images of children and two of breaching the original SHPO by having wiping software on his mobile phone and his case was adjourned for reports. At the sentencing hearing, Miss Kelly said police found a few indecent images of girls aged six to eight when they inspected the first phone on a routine monitoring visit on May 10, 2017. He told them he had “relapsed”. When they visited him on June 14, 2017, they found the second mobile phone.