A CONVICTED sex offender has been jailed for five years.
Simon Rose, 35, avoided jail in 2009 after being sentenced at Chelmsford Crown Court for possessing and downloading indecent images of children.
At the time he was given a four-month jail term, which was suspended for two years.
He was also ordered to attend a sex offenders programme.
It is believed Rose then left Essex to start a new life, but his move did not stop him reoffending.
Last week he was handed a five-year prison term in Sussex for distributing and possessing indecent images of children and for breaching imposed court orders.
Rose, who was already on the sex offenders’ register, was sentenced at Hove Crown Court, having admitted at an earlier hearing to 20 offences of distributing and possessing indecent images of children, and possessing prohibited images.
Rose, formerly of Wysteria Place, Chelmsford, and recently living in Parkhurst Road, Bexhill, East Sussex, also admitted three further offences of breaching a court-imposed sexual offences prevention order and failure to comply with court-imposed notification requirements as a registered sex offender.
He was served with an indefinite sexual offence prevention order and will be a registered sex offender for life.
Sussex Police began investigating Rose in 2010 after new information was received that he was offending online.
It became clear that even while attending a sex offenders treatment programme in Brighton, as part of his previous sentence, he was using internet cafes to distribute indecent images of children.
Det Con 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.”
June 2009
Child porn pervert flees home in shame
A CHILD sex pervert thought his home had been burgled when he returned to find it had been ransacked by police.
Simon Rose and his wife thought they were looking at the aftermath of a burglary when they returned to their home in Wysteria Place, Chelmsford.
But it got worse when they discovered a note from police who, armed with a police warrant, seized a computer after finding indecent images of kids in the house.
On Thursday last week at Chelmsford Crown Court, Rose escaped jail.
Instead, Judge Peter Fenn imposed a four month jail sentence, suspended for two years, and ordered Rose to attend a sex offenders programme.
Rose had earlier pleaded guilty to nine offences of making indecent images of children, ranging from level one to the most serious level four, plus one charge of possessing 242 images. DC Rob Smallcombe, who led the investigation for Essex Police’s Child Abuse Investigation Unit in Chelmsford, told the Chronicle: “The sentence of Simon Rose sends out a clear message to those who use the internet to search for and share images of child abuse or those who go online to approach children with a view to grooming them for sexual abuse.”
DC Smallcombe said police tracked Rose down on the back of an online investigation with other police forces, not just in the UK but worldwide.
He added: “The internet is no longer an anonymous place and those who commit crimes online will be held to account for their actions.
“I wonder if Simon Rose ever stopped to think what damage it does to those children, how their lives are probably scarred forever, so people like him can seek gratification.” Prosecuting counsel, Richard Stevens, told the court that police went to Rose’s home on July 19 last year and found 20 images that had been printed.
They also seized a computer and further images were found on the hard drive.
When interviewed Rose said he viewed adult pornography but had moved onto child porn.
Rose’s defence solicitor, James Mason, told the court of the disruption Rose and his wife had suffered as a result.
Rose and his wife have since fled to Hastings to avoid being snubbed by their neighbours. They also gave up well-paid jobs to make the move and Rose has since sought help for his problem.
Sentencing Rose, Judge Fenn told him: “This case is a wake-up call to you – to your credit you’ve arranged to go on a course.”
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