A CONVICTED sex offender has been jailed for new offending, including unlawful mobile phone possession and cannabis dealing.
William James Bell, 24, was originally sentenced in 2014 for threatening to upload photographs of a naked 14-year-old girl online, and made subject to a prevention order which imposed strict terms upon him.
That order was tweaked in 2016 when he was punished for possessing more than 2,000 indecent images of children. One condition prohibited him accessing the internet on any device not fitted with police-approved monitoring software.
Bell was returned to court in late 2018 and jailed for a year after he was found to have been unlawfully online, a judge concluding he had “deliberately acted in flagrant breach” of the prevention order.
Bell was released from custody, but found himself in more hot water on November 8 after police received information about a suspicious car in the Bransty area of West Cumbria. He was with a female and, it emerged, had been living in the vehicle – and staying at friends’ houses – while homeless.
Around 80g of cannabis potentially worth £750 if sold in separate deals was found by officers along with equipment which included empty snap-bags, a bong, weighing scales, grinders and an illegally-held mobile phone. Bell, previously of Main Street, Frizington, later admitted selling the class B drug to friends to fund his drug habit.
Bell pleaded guilty to possessing cannabis with intent to supply. He also admitted breaching the previously-imposed prevention order again by possessing the phone unlawfully, and also flouting notification requirements by not informing police where he was living within a specified time.
Bell was jailed for a total of two years today (WED) at Carlisle Crown Court, where his lawyer, Marion Weir, said he very much wanted to move on with his life but accepted a prison term was “inevitable”.
“It is a persistent breach,” Judge Barker said of the prevention order offending. ”I have genuine concerns about it, particularly regarding your antecedent history and criminal offending.”
