A former schoolboy sex offender breached restrictions to stop him from accessing child pornography by creating false online accounts and aliases.
Luke Chapman, 22, tried to hide his mobile phone in a toilet when police visisted to carry out a sexual harm prevention order inspection.
Chapman, of Bridewell Street in Wymondham, was made subject of the five year sexual harm prevention order (SHPO) in 2019 when as an 18-year-old sixth former, then living in Harleston, he admitted making more than 1,000 indecent images of children.
READ MORE: Sixth former downloaded child porn to see how ‘messed up people were’
He used the dark web claiming he was interested to see how easy it would have been to access them and to see how "messed up people were".
He appeared before Norwich Crown Court this week after admitting 12 charges of breaching the order and sex offender notification requirements.
He also pleaded guilty to possession of a prohibited image of a teenage girl discovered after police carried out an inspection at his property in May 2021.
Samantha Lowther, prosecuting, said the image had been found on his mother’s mobile phone which he had admitted using in breach of the order.
He had also set up cloud accounts and email addresses without informing the police and had deleted internet search histories, she added.
He also used five aliases to disguise his online activities.
Representing himself in court Chapman said: “I was reckless. I thought I was one step ahead of everyone else but I’ve learned you cannot be one step ahead of the police.”
READ MORE: Diss man sentenced over 2500 indecent images of children
The court was told it was aggravated because at the time he was already serving a community order for previous breaches.
Sentencing him to 20 months suspended for 18 months, Recorder Richard Conley said they had been “serious and persistent breaches committed to evade detection”.
“You have a flagrant disregard for measures that are there to protect the public from you,” he added.
He was ordered to complete 30 rehabilitation days and 180 hours unpaid work and was made subject of a new 10 year SHPO.
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