October 2026

Peter Bebbington jailed after repeatedly breaching Sexual Risk Order

A Lancaster man who took pictures of women and schoolgirls and sent s*xually harassing messages to strangers has been jailed for five and a half years.

Peter Bebbington, 38, repeatedly breached a Sexual Risk Order imposed to restrict his behaviour. Police discovered that he had begun breaking its rules within hours of being told what he was prohibited from doing.

Bebbington, formerly of Newsham Road, Lancaster, was made subject to the five-year order in April. Some of the images he took were captured the following day.

His offending came to light after an officer spotted him at a bus stop on 15 June. Bebbington tried to leave to prevent the officer inspecting his phone, but it was seized and found to contain Instagram and an account under a different name—both breaches of his order.

Further examination of his devices uncovered pictures and videos of women and girls in school uniform taken in public places, including shops, buses and a train.

Police also found 34 Facebook Messenger chat threads created using different account names. Bebbington used them to send s*xually harassing messages to female profiles belonging to strangers. The earliest chats began little more than an hour after police had explicitly told him not to use Facebook Messenger.

Bebbington was already subject to a suspended sentence imposed in May after he admitted seven previous breaches of a Sexual Risk Order in March 2025.

He appeared at Preston Crown Court on Wednesday, 28 October, having pleaded guilty to 17 breaches of his order. Police said Bebbington had taken the images for his own s*xual gratification and created false profiles to harass strangers.