Ian Beeby 70

Description

A FORMER scoutmaster jailed for abusing young boys is back behind bars after attempting to hide computer equipment from police.

In March 2016 Ian Beeby, formerly of Edditch Grove, Bolton, was jailed for five years after admitting abusing four boys in the 1980s, including one occasion on a Lake District camping trip.

Beeby, who admitted sexually assaulting the cub scouts and downloading indecent images of children, told one child: Its the sort of thing that scouts do.

In 2017 he had an extra two years and eight months added to his sentence after another victim, who he groomed and befriended as he walked past his home on the way to school, read about the previous conviction in the Bolton News and came forward.

Beeby had abused him, from the age of 10, up to three times a week, for two years.

Beeby was released on licence from prison and in March last year came back to the Bolton area, living in a flat in Black Horse Street, Blackrod.

Victoria Lewis, prosecuting, told Bolton Crown Court how Beeby, was allocated an offender manager and, under the terms of a sexual harm prevention order, had to register any device capable of accessing the internet and make it available for inspection when required.

On April 3 last year he presented the officer with a Google phone which he claimed was in only device and in June he revealed he also had a laptop. These then had eSafe software added to monitor his access to the internet.

But on September 22 the software identified a Scandisk USB being connected to the phone. It was found to contain 10 indecent images which Beeby claimed had been on a laptop he had stored prior to his prison sentence and had deleted them as soon as he saw them.

On October 21 a check on the internet router at Beebys home revealed a Raspberry Pi mini computer, which the defendant had not declared, had been connected to it. When handing it over Beeby slipped an SD card out of the device, secreted it in his pocket and disposed of it.

In relation to the Pi device the defendant stated that he knew he shouldnt have had the device and that he had been stupid to have purchased it, said Miss Lewis.

Beeby was also found to have accessed Facebook in breach of his SHPO although he denied creating asocial media account for himself.

Appearing via a video link from Whatton prison in Nottinghamshire, Beeby pleaded guilty to five counts of breaching his sexual harm prevention order.

Joshua Bowker, defending, said Beeby, a former electronic engineer, had not been open with his offender manager due to a combination of complacency and fear of being recalled to prison.

If he had his time again he would have been much more open, he added.

But, sentencing Beeby to 21 months in prison, Judge John Edwards told him: I am afraid I take the view that you have an entrenched and unhealthy interest for pre-pubescent boys and, as a computer programmer, you knew exactly what you were doing here.

In committing these breaches you are seriously culpable and you display, in my judgement, flagrant contempt for the court order made five years ago.

It is not only contemptuous of the court but it risks harm to the particular section of the public who the order was intended to protect.