A 77-year-old serial sex offender has been jailed yet again for breaching a court order to curb his criminal online activities.
Barry Hepworth, from York, had been given chance after chance to comply with the court injunction which was designed to keep him away from sexual images of children on the internet.
It meant he had to declare any new electronic devices to police and remove any wiping or deletion software.
But Hepworth’s flagrant disobedience landed him in jail again after police monitoring officers turned up at his home and found a mobile phone he had not declared to police, York Crown Court heard.
Meanwhile, forensics officers also found hundreds more indecent images on a phone which had been seized from Hepworth following a previous search of his home in 2021.
Prosecutor Brooke Morrison said police found 320 indecent photos on Hepworth’s phone, including 92 rated Category A – the worst kind of such material. They also found 33 extreme-pornography images and two prohibited or cartoon shots of children.
Hepworth was also found to have deletion software on his phone in contravention of his sexual-harm prevention order. This software enabled users to delete their browsing history.
He also used aliases to set up new email and internet accounts, which was also a breach of the order.
Hepworth, formerly of Fourth Avenue, York, but currently of no fixed address, admitted three counts of possessing indecent images, one of possessing prohibited images of children and one count of possessing extreme-pornographic images.
He also pleaded guilty to three breaches of the sexual harm order.
He appeared for sentence yesterday (Friday) after being recalled to prison last year.
Immediately freed
The court heard that in 1993, Hepworth was given a five-year jail sentence for gross indecency with a child, indecent assault and attempted sexual intercourse with a girl under 13 years of age.
Prosecuting barrister Ms Morrison said the original sexual-harm prevention order was imposed in 2016 after Hepworth was jailed for two years for making and distributing indecent images of children.
He was released from prison halfway through that sentence but in 2019 he was jailed for three years for downloading more indecent images. He was released early again, but in September 2021 police monitoring officers turned up at his home and found a new laptop and Samsung mobile phone which he had not declared to police.
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Following his arrest for those offences, Hepworth told officers he had hidden the laptop under his bed because he was “fed up of police being involved in his life” and admitted there would be indecent images of children on his phone. He was jailed for 16 months for those offences.
Hepworth had previous convictions for more than 30 offences related to the possession, downloading and distributing of indecent images of minors, as well as breaching court orders.
Defence barrister Deborah Graham said Hepworth was in poor health and that the new images found on his phone had been downloaded prior to his conviction in 2019.
Judge Sean Morris, the Recorder of York, said that Hepworth “will just not co-operate with these orders”.
He told the pensioner: “You are becoming an absolute nuisance, Barry Hepworth, and you are costing the country a lot of money (in court costs). These are deliberate breaches.”
He added: “You are just going to go back to prison time and time again before you get it through your head that court orders are there to be obeyed.”
Hepworth was handed a six-month jail sentence, but because of the amount of time he had already spent in custody it was likely to trigger his immediate release from prison.
He will remain on the sexual-harm prevention order and the sex-offenders’ register for an indefinite period.
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