Northampton man subject to sexual harm prevention order jailed after deleting internet history

Liam Paul Shields, of Park Avenue North, appeared at Northampton Crown Court on June 20, after pleading guilty to one count of breaching his SHPO.

The 43-year-old was convicted under the Sexual Offences Act 2003 in March 2012 and a SHPO, with strict conditions, was issued.

During a routine home visit in January this year, police officers inspected his phone and found Shields had flouted these strict conditions by deleting his emails from a Gmail account and his internet browsing history for the whole of December.

According to police, in a formal interview, Shields admitted to deleting the emails, however he said he did not know it was an offence to do so.

Investigating officer PC Carl Gardner, of MOSOVO, said: “Liam Shields rightly has very strict notification requirements he is expected to abide by, which were put in place to ultimately protect the public.

“It is our duty to protect the most vulnerable people in our society from people like Shields. We take the management of sex offenders extremely seriously and invest significant time and resources into doing everything we can to keep the public safe.

“We take an absolute zero-tolerance approach to situations like this. If a breach is identified, there are no second chances, as I hope this case demonstrates.”

Shields was sentenced to 20 months in prison and ordered to pay £187 surcharge upon his release.