A convicted sex offender once dubbed a “high risk” to children by a judge has been locked up again — for breaching the terms of a strict court order.
Michael Lawrence Graham, now aged 33, was jailed for five years in 2010 for child abduction. Graham had invited two girls playing in a nature trail area of a Carlisle park to “come and see some dens”.
A court heard he grabbed the girls’ hands, pushed them in front of him and guided them towards the dens. Once there, one of the girls described how Graham had tied some logs to a piece of string and tethered this to a tree to create an apparent “barrier”. She believed his intention had been to “trap” her and he was described as being “nasty” to the pair.
In 2015, Graham received a four-year jail term for outraging public decency having performed a sex act in Carlisle Library.
As part of that punishment, he was ordered to sign the sex offenders’ register and made subject to the strict terms of a sexual harm prevention order (SHPO).
Graham had already flouted that order four times before he fell foul of the authorities once again around the turn of this year. During an initial visit to his house by a police officer, he denied any wrongdoing. But it emerged he was in possession of two internet-enabled devices — a mobile phone and PlayStation Vita — which he had not declared to police or probation.
Searches had been made for Japanese pornography. In addition, he had failed to declare the activation of a Facebook account to police.
Graham, of Monks Close Road, Carlisle admitted two SHPO breaches and a breach of sex offender notification requirements.
He was sentenced at the crown court today when Graham’s barrister spoke of “loneliness” and “isolation” meaning that the defendant’s only contact with the outside world was through a computer. Graham had been “let down by adults who ought to have known better” in the past, the court heard, and previously suffered a brain injury.
But, jailing him for two years, Recorder Tony Hawks said: “You have a worrying sexual history of offending. You have got to understand that if you don’t stop breaching these orders you are going to spend most of your adult life in prison.”
Referring to a probation service pre-sentence report which, he noted, made “dismal reading”, the judge added: “You have a serious problem that needs to be addressed. It can’t be addressed until you have recognised that you have got that problem.”
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