Locations
Glanafon, Ammanford, Carmarthenshire, SA18
Description
A convicted sex offender removed a secure messaging application from his phone before police could access it or check its use, a court has heard. It is the third time Shaun Smith has breached a sexual harm prevention order which is designed to control his use of the internet and his contact with children.
The first saw him acquire a mobile phone which he kept secret from the police and the second saw him buy an internet-enabled computer games console which he again did not disclose. The sexual harm prevention order order was imposed in December 2018 after Smith sent "demanding and controlling" Facebook messages to someone he believed to be a schoolgirl, asked for intimate photos, and then tried to meet up with her at a local McDonald's.
In reality the Facebook account was being operated by a member of a so-called paedophile hunter group. Sending the 57-year-old defendant back to prison a judge told him his breaches of the court order were escalating.
Swansea Crown Court heard that on morning of June 23 this year police responsible for monitoring the defendant in the community visited Smith at his home address to carry out a risk assessment. Harry Dickens, prosecuting, said the officers asked the defendant a series of questions about his lifestyle and circumstances and asked to see his phone. The detectives asked Smith if he had deleted anything from the device and the 57-year-old replied that he had deleted the Telegram messaging app a few days earlier.
The defendant was arrested on suspicion of breaching his sexual harm prevention order and taken to a police station for questioning. In his subsequent interview Smith said he had used Telegram to chat to a woman he had met on a website called Xhamster – a pornography and social networking site. The prosecutor said in deleting the app and its data – something which is prohibited by the terms of the sexual harm prevention order (SHPO) – Smith had also deleted the online history associated with it.
Shaun Alan Smith, of Glanafon, Ammanford, had previously pleaded guilty to breaching a SHPO when he appeared in the dock for sentencing. He has two previous convictions for breaching the order – in 2020 he was given a community order for possessing a mobile phone which he had not disclosed to the authorities and then in 2022 he was jailed for owning an internet-enabled PlayStation games console which he again had not declared.
The SHPO itself was imposed in December 2018 after Smith was convicted of attempting to incite a child to engage in sexual activity and attempting to meet a child following sexual grooming. The offending saw him sending "demanding and controlling" Facebook messages to someone he believed to be a schoolgirl and then triying to meet up with her at a local McDonald's. During their online conversations Smith told what he thought was a 14-year-old girl that he was the same age as her father and "she was the sort of girl who could get a man into trouble". He also asked her whether she had lost her virginity and whether she was wearing knickers and he asked her to send intimate photographs. Smith also talked about meeting the girl and on one occasion went to a McDonald's restaurant and told his victim he was waiting for her. In fact Smith had been conversing with a member of a so-called paedophile hunter group. Sending the defendant to prison for 15 months on that occasion the judge told him he had no doubt his aim had been to "take this girl's virginity".
Rhiannon Lee-Meredith, for Smith, said to the defendant's credit he had not sought to hide the fact he had deleted the Telegram app. She said Smith was in "extreme ill-health" with spinal issues, arthritis in his hands, heart problems, and post-traumatic stress disorder and she said he was keen to maintain his relationship with his older children and to maintain his accommodation.
Recorder David Harris told Smith that deleting the app was his third breach of the order and marked, in his view, an escalation of his breaches. He said he was not persuaded there was any basis for suspending the custodial sentence that was due.
The judge said the appropriate sentence on the guidelines after trial allowing for the aggravating and mitigating factors was 18 months in prison. With a one third discount for his guilty plea Smith was sentenced to 12 months in prison. The defendant will serve up to half that period in custody before being released on licence to serve the remainder in the community. The SHPO remains in force.