A pensioner and convicted sex offender who breached a court order by using a mobile phone app has been handed another prison sentence.
David Chettle, 72, was handed a jail term of six years nine months in 2017 for sexual assault and voyeurism offending which dated back more than a decade.
Chettle was released from custody in February 2021, with his licence due to expire in July 2024.
As part of his original punishment, Chettle was ordered to abide by the terms of a sexual harm prevention order. One condition prohibited him from deleting internet history.
But in February his year, when his offender manager examined his internet-enabled mobile phone on which six applications had been downloaded using the Google Play store.
Five apps were deemed “innocent”, but Carlisle Crown Court heard that a sixth gave its user the ability to hide their internet history. That app had also been deleted.
Chettle admitted breaching the order during a nine-day period and was sentenced for that by a judge this morning.
Jeff Smith, defending, said Chettle had been “bumbling around” as he sought to get to grips with a new and more modern mobile phone he had legitimately acquired. He understood he had been “compelled” to download that application at the centre of the breach in order to gain access to other apps.
“His actions were not in any way, he instructs me, sinister,” said Mr Smith.
Chettle, of Coledale Meadows, Carlisle, had since been recalled to custody under the terms of his licence.
He was handed a four-month jail term for the breach by Recorder Julian Shaw, who ordered the mobile phone to be forfeited and destroyed.
Recorder Shaw said: “Be careful accessing a more modern mobile phone with access to the internet (in future) because I’m afraid to say you may not find that the next judge you appear in front of — were that to happen — to be as sympathetic.”
