A convicted child sex offender, Roland Mitchell, has been incarcerated after concealing three mobile phones and additional digital gadgets at his residence in Newcastle.
Roland Mitchell, incarcerated in the 1980s and 1990s for the indecent assault of minors, was placed on a Sexual Harm Prevention Order in 2016 after being apprehended with indecent photos of children. According to the order, the 74-year-old is required to notify the police of any gadgets he possesses that can access the internet or save digital images or films.
During a normal check to his residence, an officer observed that his standard mobile phone exhibited a minimal internet history, which raised her suspicions. A second search of the premises uncovered three other phones, a laptop, a tablet, a USB drive, a hard drive, and three camcorders.
Now, Roland Mitchell, of Cambridge Street, in Elswick, Newcastle, has been jailed for 10 months after he pleaded guilty to five counts of breaching a Sexual Harm Prevention Order and two of failing to comply with notification requirements of the sex offenders register.
Rachael Glover, prosecuting, said an officer attended Roland Mitchell’s address on November 30 last year. She added: “During that visit, the defendant handed over a mobile phone, in which the officer identified there was very little internet history and, suspecting this may be down to him deleting the history, he was arrested.”
A later search of the flat uncovered the hidden devices, as well as a Barclays bank card and a passport, which he must also tell police about under the terms of his order. During interview, Roland Mitchell claimed he had forgotten about the digital devices but had no explanation for the three phones.
The court heard that Roland Mitchell had 32 offences on his record, including gross indecency from 1964, indecent assault on a female under 14 in 1980 and similar offending in 1983. He was then jailed again in 1998 for indecent assault. Caroline McGurk, defending, said Roland Mitchell now suffered with ill health and there was no evidence that he had used the devices in a “suspect” way.
Locking him up, Judge Penny Moreland said: “They were deliberate breaches and I’m satisfied it couldn’t be anything other than deliberate to posses that number of devices.”
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