Norfolk 2024-11-08

Stuart Baker 47

Former teaching assistant jailed again after hiding illicit phone in washing powder box.

Profile Picture
Offender ID: O-6438

Locations

HMP Bure

Description

A sex offender has been before a court again after a housemate told police about a secret phone hidden in a box of washing powder.

The phone was not registered with Stuart Baker’s police supervisor, who discovered on it TikTok and Instagram accounts.

He has now been given another jail term after he admitted breaching his sexual harm prevention order.

Baker was a teaching assistant at Corby Business Academy when he was first arrested back in 2017. A parent – whose children did not attend Corby Business Academy – found messages from him on social media accounts.

It emerged he had been posing as a 14-year-old to groom young victims into engaging in sexual chat.

He later admitted to ten charges of inciting children to engage in sexual activity and five relating to the making and distribution of indecent images of children. He was jailed for three years.

He was also made the subject of a sexual harm prevention order (SHPO) which banned him from a range of behaviours linked to his offending.

But in September 2018 he was back before the courts again and was convicted of multiple counts of sexual activity with a child and a sexual assault on a boy. The contact offences pre-dated his 2017 charges and spanned a number of years. He was sentenced at Northampton Crown Court to serve ten years in prison.

He was released after serving five years of his sentence and was closely supervised by a MOSOVO officer from Northamptonshire Police.

But he has repeatedly breached his SHPO and has received sentences of 36 months and 40 months for using undisclosed email accounts and an alias on social media since his first release.

He was recalled after his most previous breach and will not be eligible for release until at least 2028 when he will have to go before the parole board who will decide whether it is safe for him to be allowed back into the community.

He appeared before Northampton Crown Court yesterday to be sentenced after admitting three breaches of his SHPO including failure to notify his supervising officer of a phone, failure to disclose an email account and failure to disclose three social media accounts.

The court heard how Baker, now 47 and of HMP Bure in Norfolk, had been living with other adults in Northampton in May this year when another resident reported that he was keeping a secret mobile phone.

Prosecuting, Micaila Williams told the court that Baker had hidden the phone in a detergent box in the kitchen, which was discovered by police.

He provided the PIN to officers who discovered a Gmail account as well as TikTok, Instagram and Telegram profiles.

In mitigation, the court was told he was not using the accounts to communicate with children but with adult family members who had recently lost a parent.

He had also recently moved prison in order to access more help with his offending behaviour.

Her Honour Judge Lucking sentenced Baker to spend 10 months in prison, to be served concurrently with his present sentence.

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