Locations
Miles Platting, Manchester, M40
Description
On Thursday 13 November 2025 at Manchester Crown Court, William Howarth (28/07/2002), of Miles Platting, was sentenced to nine years and eight months in prison with a further six years on licence, at Manchester Crown Court.
It follows an investigation by our Sex Offender Crime Investigation Team (SOCIT) after Howarth was found to be in possession of an unregistered mobile phone in a visit from his offender manager in 2023, due to him being an already registered sex offender managed by GMP through a Sexual Harm Prevention Order (SHPO).
Howarth was subject to routine checks where he had to register his mobile device and hand it over to his offender manager from our Sex Offender Management Unit (SOMU) during home visits.
Howarth was found to be in breach of his SHPO, and his mobile device was immediately seized and through forensic analysis, a number of messages were found to have been sent to several young girls under the age 16.
An investigation was immediately launched, and with the help of police forces across the country, we managed to trace the children Howarth had been in communication with and they bravely agreed to give their accounts.
One of the child victims told police how Howarth would call her “fat” and a “whore”. Whilst he told another girl how he liked her petite body and how big he would look next to her.
Another victim was living in terror after Howarth told her that nobody would believe what she had to say because she was young. In a message to her, he said “it sounds wrong but honestly don’t want to leave you. I’d rather risk it with you then leave u”, following him then disclosing to her his real age.
Howarth would send messages to these child victims about what he would like to do to them sexually, and would frequently request indecent images of themselves, directing what poses he wanted them to do for him. In return, he would send them videos of himself masturbating.
The child victims also explained how they felt pressured into sending him pictures of themselves to Howarth, and some were even subjected to threats from him.
One child victim described to police how she blocked Howarth on a social media site, but that she would receive friend requests from different accounts he would use to continue to message her. When he did manage to message her, he would threaten to distribute images of her online.
Howarth displayed controlling behaviour over the children he had been in contact with, not allowing them to refuse his requests. When the children attempted to make a stand and refuse to send further images, Howarth would threaten them by stating if they didn’t do as he asked, he would post their images online for people to see.
In a hearing at Manchester Crown Court on 10 November 2025, Howarth pleaded guilty to the following 35 offences: