Ronald Howard 26

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AN offender previously jailed for activity which was deemed to constitute ‘child abduction’ in Warrington has been locked up again.

Ronald Howard was told to ‘stay well away’ from a teenage girl he plied with alcohol, having been incarcerated for six months in April last year.

However, the 26-year-old has now reoffended after he pretended to be a woman during sexualised chats with someone he believed to be a 13-year-old girl.

He appeared before Liverpool Crown Court charged with attempted sexual communications with a child.

Frank Dillon, prosecuting, told the court that on November 30 last year, six months after he was jailed for the Warrington offence, Howard contacted the fake profile of ‘Milly’, a 13-year-old girl on the Rando Chat app.

This account had been set up by an undercover police officer tasked with rooting out online child sex offenders.

The defendant pretended to be a 19-year-old woman and the conversation became sexualised, with the defendant sending the ‘girl’ an image of a woman exposing her breasts.

The conversation moved to Snapchat, and Howard sent a picture to her which he claimed was of ‘her boyfriend’s penis’. He also encouraged her to send him photographs of herself.

Police were able to identify Howard through his phone number, which was known by the probation service, said Mr Dillon.

He was arrested on December 22 and made no comment to most of the questions when interviewed.

The court heard of his previous conviction for child abduction in April last year, with the court hearing on that occasion that in January last year, police attended his then-flat on Silverdale Road in Newton-le-Willows and issued him with a child abduction warning notice.

At the time of serving the notice, police found the girl inside Howard’s flat and returned her to her place of residence, namely a care home in the Warrington area.

On March 2 last year, , at around 8.30pm, the girl’s carer and a colleague had to leave the home to look for her after she went missing.

They found the girl on a dirt track with the defendant, who was holding her up as they walked as she was unsteady on her feet.

The carer could smell alcohol on the girl’s breath, who was finding it difficult to keep her eyes open and whose head was ‘floppy’.

She asked the man who he was, to which he gave a false name and address, as well as saying he was from St Helens but was currently homeless. He did not reply when asked how he knew her.

As she began to sober up the next day, she confirmed the identity of the defendant and that he had been served with a child abduction warning notice.

She told the carer they had been to a Co-op together for alcohol and that they had kissed, but she could not remember anything else.

Howard was sentenced to six months in prison and handed a restraining order not to contact the girl or enter the Warrington street on which she resides for seven years.

After approving the restraining order, Judge Potter added: “Stay well away from this child.”

For this latest attempted sexual communications with a child offence, recorder Eric Lamb sentenced Howard, of Grange Park Road in Thatto Heath, St Helens, to 15 months in prison.

He was also ordered to sign on the sex offender register for 10 years and hit with a sexual harm prevention order for the same length of time.