Latest Offenders Flintshire

Description

A teenager claimed he had been bullied in school to look at indecent images of children.

But an investigation showed he continued to search for such images after he left school. It was said in court to have become an addiction.

Morgan Andrew Abbott, 18, of Lower Dee View Road in Greenfield, Holywell, was given a chance of a suspended sentence.

At Mold Crown Court, Judge Niclas Parry gave him a 16 month youth custody sentence but suspended it for two years.

He was ordered to carry out 100 hours unpaid work and he was placed on 60 days rehabilitation.

Abbott was ordered to register with the police as a sex offender for 10 years and a 10 year sexual harm prevention order was also made.

He admitted he made by downloading 115 indecent images and movies of children at the most serious category A; 99 images at category B, and 288 images and movies of children at category C.

Abbott admitted that in November last year he distributed indecent images/movies of children in all three categories using Skype.

He admitted possessing 244 prohibited images of children and possessing six extreme images, which portrayed, in an explicit and realistic way, a person performing an oral sex act on a dog.

Judge Parry told him it took a police investigation and his arrest for him to realise the seriousness of what he had been involved with.

He had searched for material which depicted the abuse of very young children.

It has taken this prosecution for you to understand that children who are abused suffer trauma which is immeasurable, he said.

His case was seriously aggravated by the fact some of the images had been shared, he said.

Judge Parry warned the distribution offences could attract sentences of up to five years.

But he was only 18, he committed the offences when he was immature, inquisitive and nave, and experimenting sexually.

He had no previous convictions and he had pleaded guilty.

If he received an immediate sentence then he would be released relatively early without any of the issues and problems he had being addressed, the judge told him. He had therefore decided to suspend the sentence.

Robin Boag, defending, said his client was a young man of good character with no convictions who had pleaded guilty at an early stage.

The distribution was limited to two individuals in November of last year.

He had initially been bullied into doing it but he accepted it had carried on from there.

There had been some encouragement and then he accepts it became an addiction, he said.

Description

Not on official sex offenders register. A hardworking McDonald's staff member lived a secret double life as a burglar breaking into houses to steal womens underwear. John Junior Sillah worked at the fast food restaurant in Mold during the day and was valued there. But once he had had a drink, he was unable to control his urges and twice broke into one womans house to steal her knickers in order to satisfy his fetish. In between two of the break-ins, he sent the terrified woman a Facebook friend request. He had first broken into one womans home in April last year, but went back again on Christmas Day and stole more. On the same day, he burgled other homes in Mold . One young woman had been out when he rifled through her knicker drawer. Along the same road, at around 2.20am on Christmas morning, a man was awoken by Sillah standing at the foot of his bed. Sillah fled with the mans coat. At Caernarfon crown court today, his defence barrister Oliver King described him as not a conventional burglar, and argued for a novel approach to sentencing him. He said: He seems to have led a double life working at McDonalds at Mold during the day and hes valued there, yet he has this fetish. When he has a drink, it disinhibits him. Psychiatric reports found Sillah had a mental disorder which could be controlled when he was sober. Judge David Hale, sentencing Sillah, said it seemed that he had this compulsion to steal underwear. Sillah pleaded guilty to four burglaries and one attempted burglary. A 2012 offence was also taken into consideration. Judge Hale told him: These offences are far too serious for me to look to any non-custodial option. He jailed Sillah, 20, of Mornington Crescent in Buckley, for two-and-a-half years.

Description

A SEXUAL predator who abused his position as a youth leader to groom teenage boys has been jailed for four years.

Former firefighter and cadet leader David Ross Gittins, 25, of Windmill, in Pentre Halkyn, Holywell, was sentenced at Chester Crown Court on Thursday (September 16).

His victims were primarily male teenage fire cadets aged between 15 and 16 from Cheshire, whom he befriended during fire cadet meetings.

He bombarded them with requests for explicit images through social networking, instant messaging and webcam sessions.

Ironically, as part of his cadet leader training, Gittins had attended a child protection course to safeguard the youngsters against sexual grooming.

He had taken part in this training during the summer of 2009, just prior to taking a role as a full-time firefighter.

Gittins first target was a female cadet, who he begged to have sex with him, despite her reminders that she was only 14.

Again, he repeatedly asked her to send him explicit photographs of herself but also confessed to her that he thought he was a closet homosexual.

After that, he struck up friendships with a number of boys aged between 15 and 16, though he later claimed that he thought the boys were all 16.

On a number of occasions, he invited the boys to his house, where he would ply them with alcohol, tell them he loved them and encourage them to engage in sexual activity, which was then photographed using a mobile phone.

These photographs were then shown to the boys peers in a bid to normalise the behaviour and recruit more victims.

Police later found 155 indecent images on his computer.

These mostly involved the male cadets, but included pictures where he had superimposed the face of a 16-year-old who he knew only from Facebook onto an explicit image.

Police also found copies of conversations with a 16-year-old boy who was not a fire cadet, but to whom he had sent images.

Prosecuting, Owen Edwards said: He is a sexual predator and these boys have been left stressed and confused as a result of his behaviour.

The pictures were used to show the next in line to encourage them to do the same.

He has abused a position of trust as their instructor for his own sexual purposes.

Mary McKeone, defending, said: It is wholly inappropriate and unacceptable as well as criminal, but his behaviour was misguided as opposed to predatory.

There was no intimidation or coertion involved, and the period of offending was short-lived.

It was inevitable that he would be discovered because of the lack of sophistication involved. It was only a matter a time before it was detected.

Judge Elgan Edwards said that Gittins conduct has been quite disgraceful.

Sentencing Gittins to four years imprisonment, he added: Your behaviour is a gross breach of trust. You were, in my view, a sexual predator, using your position in an honourable profession to further your own sexual, lustful excitement.

People like you must know that if you behave in this way towards young and vulnerable people, you must accept that an immediate custodial sentence is inevitable.

This has had a devastating effect on them and their families.

This is a sentence that you richly deserve.

As well as a custodial sentence, Gittins will be placed on the sex offenders register for life.

He is banned from using a computer or accessing the internet except for during the course of his work; using file sharing or peer to peer software; using social networking and instant messaging; inviting anyone under the age of 18 into his home without a parent or guardian present; having contact with any of the complainants.

The order also imposes a lifetime ban on working with children.