Leeds pervert breached court order restricting internet use within one day
The prosecution called it a “persistent breach” committed over two months
A Leeds pervert has avoided a prison sentence despite breaching a court order restricting his internet use within one day of it being issued.
Paul Mann, who was previously convicted of making and possessing indecent images of children in 2021, pleaded guilty to a breach of his sexual harm prevention order.
Leeds Crown Court heard how the 58-year-old visited multiple VPN and proxy sites on his laptop within one day of receiving a community order for the initial offences.
Prosecutor Maya Hanson detailed how entering the sites to browse anonymously was a breach of his release conditions.
She added that it was a “persistent breach” committed over the course of two months.
In mitigation, defence counsel Vince Blake-Barnard said that Mann, of Old Farm Drive, Leeds, had installed the servers “not out of malice but a degree of ignorance”.
He added that his client recognises what he did was wrong and that he “should have known better”. There have been no further breaches since.
Despite a pre-sentence report describing the defendant as presenting a “high likelihood of serious offending,” Judge Mushtaq Khokhar opted to hand him an 18-month community order.
“On this occasion I’m going to take a chance on you,” he added.