Peterborough sex offender labelled 'danger to children' jailed for messaging girl on Whatsapp

A sex offender who has been labelled ‘a danger to children’ has been jailed after he breached a court order by communicating with a girl and deleting his internet history.

Alan Stokes, 42, was visited by officers at his home in Willonholt, Ravensthorpe, on 6 September last year and during the routine visit, they checked his mobile phone after he told them he had been speaking to a female on Whatsapp.

The phone was seized and the female discovered to be a child.

Stokes had sent messages to the girl, who had confirmed she was a child, between June and August last year.

He also tried to communicate with her through a webcam.

When Stokes was arrested on 30 October, he had hidden a mobile phone under a pillow and another under his mattress.

Both phones were seized and it was found he had deleted 2324 items from one phone’s internet history.

Communicating with a girl under 18 and deleting internet history put Stokes in breach of two conditions of his Sexual Harm Prevention Order (SHPO), which was imposed in March 2015 for previous breaches of orders.

On Wednesday Stokes was jailed for 22 months, having pleaded guilty to attempting to engage in sexual communication with a child and two breaches of his SHPO.

DC Claire Cummings, from the force’s management of sexual offenders team, said: “Stokes is a danger to children and we will always enforce SHPOs and make sure sex offenders are abiding by their conditions.

“This sentence sends out a clear message that we will look to protect children and the vulnerable from harm.”