Anthony Edwards 64

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A ‘lonely’ convicted paedophile appearing before a crown court judge for the fourth time in 10 years was spared a spell in prison – for having McAfee anti-virus on his laptop.

But Anthony Edwards was warned that the ‘only sanction available’ if he breached his sexual harm prevention order again or committed further offences in the next two years would be an immediate jail term.

On Thursday, Oxford Crown Court heard that 63-year-old Edwards was originally given an indefinite sexual harm prevention order and placed on the sex offender register for life after he was convicted in 2013 of sexually assaulting a girl.

He was later convicted of having indecent images of children and, in 2018, of flouting the court order designed to limit his access to the web.

Prosecuting, Robert Lindsey said a police officer installed monitoring software on Edwards’ HP laptop in October 2018.

Three months later, in January 2019, Edwards asked his supervising officer if he could ‘defragment’ the laptop’s hard drive. “The officer said no,” the prosecutor told the court.

By 2020, the defendant raised concerns that his laptop was running slowly and that it might have been hit by a computer virus. The officer was ‘somewhat suspicious’ of Edwards’ explanations, Mr Lindsey said – prompting the judge to add: “I’m not surprised.”

Checks showed that although the police monitoring software was still installed on the computer, it had not been working since April 2019.

Edwards had downloaded McAfee anti-virus software and the computer’s hard drive was ‘empty’, indicating that the convicted sex offender had deleted his internet browser history in spite of a court order banning him from doing so.

Edwards, of Ballards Close, Shipton-under-Wychwood, pleaded guilty to breaching his sexual harm prevention order.

He also admitted breaching sex offender notification requirements by failing to attend a police station within three days of his annual requirement to ‘re-register’ his details in 2021.

Mitigating, Gordana Austin said her client felt ‘isolated and lonely’. His mother, with whom he lived and for whom he cared, sadly died last year and the council was looking to move him to supported accommodation.

Sentencing him to a two year community order, Recorder John Hardy KC told Edwards: “Courts impose orders upon you and people like you for reasons.

“Where those orders are breached, courts normally take the view that a person who’s been leniently sentenced in the past is being contemptuous of the order of the court and therefore immediate custody is the only sanction available.

“That will be the case if you breach the order I am now about to impose.”

Edwards was ordered to complete up to 30 rehabilitation activity requirement days and was banned from deleting his internet history or tampering with ‘e-safe’ software installed on his devices by the police.

He must pay £200 in costs to the Crown Prosecution Service.