November 2018 Boston sex offender broke rules of Sexual Offenders Prevention Order A BOSTON sex offender, who broke the rules of his Sexual Offenders’  Prevention Order (SOPO) by having images of children on a memory stick, has been given a suspended prison sentence. Robert James Orton, 50, of Moorhen Close admitted possessing the memory stick and also to failing to tell police that he had it, when he appeared before District Judge Peter Veits sitting at Boston Magistrates Court. Prosecuting, Jim Clare said Orton was a registered sex offender for an unlimited period following a conviction and prison sentence at Lincoln Crown Court in February 2014 for possessing more than 130,000 images of children and that one of the requirements was not to hold images of children. Mr Clare said that in June, police had gone to see Orton and had asked him if he had any memory sticks or anything else capable of holding images and he said that he didn’t. However, on September 6, they again saw him and found a memory stick containing images of children, none of which was indecent. In interview, Orton admitted he had failed to tell the police about the memory stick, which contained images of children he had been asked to send to their parents, who were known to him. Judge Veits told Orton he was ‘no stranger to breaching the order’. “These were deliberate breaches of the order but I will not send you to prison immediately as the pictures were not indecent,” he told Orton. He imposed a total of 24 weeks in prison but suspended it for a year and ordered him to pay £200 in costs and charges. March 2014 Convicted sex offender downloaded more than 100,000 child abuse images A convicted sex offender who downloaded more than 100,000 indecent images of children was jailed for two years at Lincoln Crown Court. Robert Orton was arrested in March last year after police carried out a spot check on his one-bedroomed flat and recovered computer equipment and mobile phones. James Varley, prosecuting, said Orton told officers he only had one mobile phone and that had nothing wrong on it. But a search revealed a second phone concealed under a pillow, a computer hard drive and a lap top computer hidden behind the bed. Mr Varley said: “There was a huge quantity of images on the lap top and the hard drive.” Orton was bailed but in November he was arrested again after he was spotted in Boston Library viewing pictures of young boys on a computer. Mr Varley said: “A concerned member of the public saw that Orton was looking at pictures of boys. That person notified the police.” Officers arrived to find Orton loading the illegal images from the library computer onto a Play Station Portable device. Mr Varley said that in total 131,366 indecent images of children were found on computer devices and mobile phones. The majority were in the least serious category but almost 500 were in the two most serious levels. Orton also had a further 6,718 prohibited images. Orton, 45, of Middlecott Close, Boston, admitted 12 charges of making and possessing indecent images of children on Friday. He also admitted two charges of breaching a sexual offences prevention order. The court was told that Orton was jailed for four years back in 1996 for sex offences against young boys and in March 2011 was jailed again for possessing of indecent images. Judge Sean Morris imposed an indefinite sexual offences prevention order banning Orton from possessing any photograph of a child. The judge told Orton: “The public would expect me to lock you up and that is what I’m going to do. It has to be brought home to you that this is against the law.” Jack Talbot, defending, said Orton had co-operated with the police since his arrest and pleaded guilty to the offences at the earliest opportunity. “He is a solitary character. He is not involved in chat rooms or in distributing pictures.”