Steven Smith 44

Description

A registered sex offender has been jailed for a second time after looking at indecent images of children.

Steven Smith, from Sittingbourne, was convicted at Maidstone Crown Court in January 2022 for sexual communication with a child, causing or inciting a girl under 13 to engage in sexual activity and making indecent photographs of children.

He received a prison sentence of two years and seven months.

Upon his release, he was subject to strict sex offender notification requirements (SONR) along with a sexual harm prevention order (SHPO).

This included conditions that allowed police to have access to any device capable of storing images and to install monitoring software on his mobile phone and computer.

Smith was arrested again on May 13, after investigators identified he had accessed seven illegal images of children on his phone.

His home was searched and several bank cards he had failed to log with the police were found.

This, along with his failure to register his use of several social media usernames with officers, were breaches of his court orders.

Smith, of Peregrine Drive, Sittingbourne, was charged and pleaded guilty at Maidstone Crown Court to making indecent images of a child and six breaches of his SONR.

Last Tuesday (November 12), the 44-year-old was sentenced to a year in prison.

On his release, he will be subject to a further SHPO indefinitely.

Police investigator Thomas Briant said: “Smith was given the opportunity by the court to show he could reform and be trusted not to reoffend whilst living in the community.

“Once we identified he was blatantly accessing indecent images of children on a phone we were actively monitoring, he was immediately arrested.

“This led to the identification that Smith had breached his court orders multiple times.

“He is now serving another prison sentence and will be subject to ongoing checks when he is released.”