Paedophile Jailed for 5 years

4 April 2012, 15:28 | Updated: 4 April 2012, 15:36

A 35 year old man, who used internet cafes in Brighton and Hastings to distribute indecent images of children, has been jailed for 5 years.

Simon Rose from St Leonards has also been convicted for breaching court-imposed orders after he approached a single mum with young kids on facebook.

Police have praised her for reporting her concerns about the 35 year old who was already on the sex offender register.

Rose has been sentenced at Hove Crown Court after pleading guilty at a previous hearing to 20 offences of distributing and possessing indecent images of children, and possession of prohibited images.

He had also pleaded guilty to three further offences of breaching a court-imposed Sexual Offences Prevention Order (SOPO), and failure to comply with court-imposed notification requirements as a registered sex offender.

He will be a registered sex offender for life.

In 2008 he had been convicted in Essex, where he then lived, of making indecent images of children and had received a 24-month suspended sentence, along with the SOPO and sex offender registration requirement.

The Sussex Police Paedophile Online Investigation Team (POLIT) began a new intelligence-led investigation into Rose in 2010 after new information was received that he was offending on line yet again.

It became clear that even whilst attending a Sex Offenders Treatment Programme (SOTP) inBrightonas part of his previous sentence, he was using Internet cafés in Brighton and Hastings to distribute indecent images of children.

Detective Constable Jane Tunnicliff said:

"Rose was still using the Internet to distribute indecent images of very young children, mainly young boys, even after being sentenced for a similar offence. Every image is of child sexual abuse and exploitation.

"It was of even more concern that he was seeking to develop an on-line relationship with a woman who had young children and we have no doubt that part of his motivation was to groom very young boys for sexual activity.

"We are very glad that the woman came forward. She was very quickly informed about Rose and was assured that action was being taken to ensure that he posed no further threat."