Luke Rogers 38

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POLICE have released the mugshot of a sex offender who breached the terms of a court order by deleting Facebook and WhatsApp from his phone and having a secret second phone.

At Swansea Crown Court last week, Judge Paul Thomas KC jailed Luke Rogers for 16 months, running concurrently for each of the two breaches.

The court heard that Rogers had been convicted in 2020 for two offences of sexual activity with a girl under the age of 16. He was jailed for 15 months, and was made the subject of a 10-year sexual harm prevention order, and had to register as a sex offender for the same period of time.

As part of the terms of these orders, Rogers had to notify the police within three days of buying any device capable of accessing the internet, and was not allowed to delete files, applications, data, or internet history from his devices.

At a hearing on September 20, Swansea Crown Court was told that Rogers attended Haverfordwest Police Station on August 29. During that meeting, he admitted that he had deleted the Facebook app from his phone as he had been “getting hassle” from another man. He had also deleted WhatsApp.

The court heard that he had done a factory reset on the phone.

“It was found that he had last used WhatsApp on August 23, and that he had deliberately deleted the application ahead of the meeting,” prosecutor Hannah George told the court on September 20.

The police were granted a search warrant, and a second phone was found at Rogers’ address. It was confirmed by both his partner – who provided officers with both of the defendant’s phone numbers – and his grandmother that it belonged to Rogers.

He was interviewed at Haverfordwest Police Station, and admitted two breaches of the order.

Rogers said he had bought the second phone three weeks earlier, and that he had reset his other phone because “WhatsApp was not working”.

The court heard that Rogers, 37, of Wolfscastle, had 16 previous convictions for 33 offences – of which seven were sexual in nature.

He also “has a history of failing to comply with the notification requirements,” Ms George told the court.

Stephan Alfred, who represented Rogers at the hearing in September, said that Rogers had not received any support in the form of a sexual offenders treatment programme.

He admitted there was “a cycle here in terms of breaches” by Rogers.

The case was adjourned for the preparation of a pre-sentence report, and Rogers was sentenced on Wednesday, November 8.

Judge Thomas also ordered the defendant must also pay a £156 surcharge, and a forfeiture and destruction order was made regarding one of the phones seized.