Latest Offenders Swansea

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A murderer who spent 17 years in prison for dousing an ex-girlfriend in petrol and setting fire to her is back behind bars after being caught with child sex abuse pictures.

Ian Anthony Harris downloaded the indecent pictures after visiting internet sex chatrooms.

However, officers from the South Wales Police On-line Investigation Team (Polit) were alerted to his activity and swooped on his Swansea house.

In 1988 Harris murdered his ex, Mandy Jackson, after she ended their relationship - he went to her flat in Uplands, poured petrol over her as she made a cup of tea and threw a match on her. Police later found her charred body by the kitchen table.

Harris was given a life sentence for murdering the 21-year-old.

Dean Pulling, prosecuting, told Swansea Crown Court that on February 10 this year officers from Polit received information about activity involving a computer linked to an address in the Ravenhill area of the city.

Harris was out, but officers went to his place of work and took him back home - in a bedroom at the property they found a desktop computer containing 18 indecent images including one of Category A, the most extreme kind. Officers also found evidence Harris had shared a Category B image.

The 52-year-old pleaded guilty to one count of distributing an indecent image of a child and three of possessing indecent images when he appeared in custody in the dock.

The court heard that during his police interviews Harris said he had downloaded the images after visiting internet chatrooms where the talk was invariably sexual, and in a variety of forms. He said he had uploaded an image - of Category B - after somebody in a chatroom asked to see it.

The prosecutor said Harris had convictions for some 22 offences including murder.

Harris was released from jail in 2006.

He was recalled to prison after his arrest on the indecent images charges.

Dan Griffiths, for Harris, said his client accepted that in due course he would have to convince the parole board he was no longer a danger.

The advocate said his client was a family man who had started a new relationship after his release in 2006, and had spent six years working as a greenskeeper at a Swansea golf course.

Recorder Ifan Wyn Lloyd told him possessing indecent child images was a serious matter.

He said: Behind every one of these images there is a child being abused - these are not just images, these are real children being abused so people like you can get some sort of perverted pleasure from viewing them.

Harris was sentenced to a total of eight months in prison, and will be on the sex offenders register for the next 10 years. He was also made the subject of an indefinite Sexual Harm Prevention Order controlling his access to the internet.

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Guy Brigdale messaged the youngster on Facebook and attempted to get her to take and send indecent pictures

A man has been jailed for three years and put on the sex-offenders register for life after contacting a young girl on social media and trying to get her to send him sexually explicit photographs.

Swansea Crown Court heard that 26-year-old Guy Brigdale messaged the youngster on Facebook and attempted to get her to take and send indecent pictures.

However a family member of the victim saw some of the messages he had sent on the girl's phone - and then pretended to be her, and carried on the exchanges with the defendant.

Police were later contacted, and Brigdale arrested at an address in Swansea.

Brigdale, of Heol y Cae, Pontarddulais had previously pleaded guilty to attempting to incite a girl under-16 to send him photographs when he appeared in the dock today for sentencing. The Pontarddulais address is not the address where the offending took place.

Stuart John, for Brigdale, said his client accepted he had "issues", and wanted help in addressing them.

Judge Keith Thomas said he had read a probation report into the defendant and it was clear he had "a particular sexual interest" in such matters and intended to arrange to meet the girl, who cannot be named to protect her identity.

The judge told him: "You were grooming her and you would have committed more serious offences if given the opportunity."

Brigdale was sentenced to three years in prison, and put on the sex offenders register for life. He was also made the subject of Sexual Harm Prevention Order which bans him from having unauthorised contact with under-16s, and from deleting his search histories on internet devices.

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Paul Neumann pleaded not guilty to the charges, however he was found guilty and was convicted of the offences, which were dated in October in November 2015.

The court heard how Neumann had pursued young and vulnerable women after offering them alcohol, and afterwards raped and sexually assaulted them.

Officers at Morriston CIDs specialist sexual offences unit, commended the three victims for coming forward and giving evidence for such a horrible case.

Neumann was sentenced to 12 years behind bars for rape and two counts of sexual assault.

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Ronald Preddy, 73, used threats and bribes to encourage children into sexual acts

A former colliery security guard labelled a remorseless sexual predator has been jailed for 18 years for sexual offences against boys.

Ronald Preddy, 73, of Dunraven Street, Glyncorrwg, in Port Talbots Upper Afan Valley , had denied offences including rape and indecent assault going back to the 1990s against two boys.

But at a Swansea Crown Court trial he was found guilty of the offences and was sentenced by Judge Huw Davies QC on Friday.

The judge described Preddy as a remorseless sexual predator who had committed offences over a 25-year period using bribes in one case as low as 50p and in some cases using threats to encourage children into sexual acts.

The trial heard evidence relating to two sets of offences against two boys, one relating to the 1990s, the other said to have occurred more recently.

The court heard the offences took place in the South Wales area and that Preddy had been, until his retirement, a security guard at a coal mine.

In 2004, Preddy was jailed for eight years for separate sexual offences, also involving a young boy.

Judge Davies said over a 12-year period, Preddy had been before Swansea Crown Court three times for sexual offences, each time denying he had done anything wrong.

The judge told Preddy: You have shown no remorse whatsoever.

Preddy was given in total a 21-year extended prison sentence but with a custodial element of 18 years.

He was also placed on the sex offenders register for the rest of his life.