Man found with sexual images of children on phone days after prison release

A man was found with sexual images of children on his mobile phone just days after his release from prison for a previous sexual offence.

Jack O’Shea, 24, was recalled on prison licence in May 2022 after pleading guilty to failing to comply with his notification requirements.

O’Shea was under a sexual harm prevention order and subject to notification requirements following a four-year rape conviction which he served in a young offenders institute,

Prosecuting at Burnley Crown Court, Stephen Parker said following O’Shea’s release on May 9, 2022, police made an unannounced home compliance visit to him four days later.

They looked at his mobile phone and found images of a young man, aged around 14 or 15, saved on there.

His device was subsequently sent for analysis and was found to contain 40 category B images, both still and moving, and 32 category C images, all still images.

In interview, he told police the images would have been from 2016 from his Snapchat account which would have been redownloaded to his new device when logging into his Snapchat account again.

In December of that year, police said the 72 images were not those and were in fact new images.

Cecilia Pritchard, mitigating, said O’Shea did not “advance any excuses” for the offending.

He pleaded guilty to all matters.

Judge Sara Dodd, sentencing, said they were “wholly unpleasant images of children being sexually abused” and O’Shea “knew all too well the consequences of that, which makes it all the more alarming you have them.”

O’Shea, previously of Lydia Street, Accrington, but now living in Lincolnshire, was given an 18-month community order and 20 rehabilitation activity days.