Locations
Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, HD4
Description
Two sick paedophiles were caught messaging one another on WhatsApp about child sex abuse.
Ricky Cavanagh, 38, was subject to a sexual harm prevention order at the time his phone was looked at by police, who had received intelligence he had been on a number of social media sites.
Bradford Crown Court heard on Tuesday that the order had been put in place in September 2016 when Cavanagh, of no fixed abode, had been convicted of a series of sickening sexual offences including attempting to cause a girl under the age of 13 to engage in sexual activity.
Prosecutor Zabreen Alam-Cheetham, said that at the time of the breach of the order on March 18 this year, Cavanagh was managed by the Calderdale Public Protection Unit. She said: "The conditions prohibited him from making any attempt to delete any data from any device that can access the internet or refusing to show such history to a police officer." The court was told a number of concerns were raised in relation to Cavanagh due to him being "elusive" and reports which had been received.
Ms Alam-Cheetham said: "The defendant was seen by a public protection officer walking through Halifax town centre. He was stopped and spoken to and due to previous concerns and the conditions of his sexual harm prevention order was asked to produce items and he got out his phone, opened the device and the PC watched as he scrolled to media he had downloaded and deleted the Snapchat app from the device."
Cavanagh was detained and arrested and his internet history was lost but his WhatsApp conversations showed he was in conversation with another sex offender discussing the sexual abuse of children. A forensic download of his phone also showed Snapchat had been installed on nine occasions and uninstalled on eight occasions between February and March this year.
His Honour Judge Ahmed Nadim told the court Cavanagh was a "high risk sex offender." Cavanagh represented himself and said he was "happy with everything and happy to proceed."
He was jailed for 28 months and told: "You're regarded by the public protection unit as a high risk offender. Your behaviour in the community has caused the authorities some considerable concern. You're capable of plumbing to the depths of depravity.