A convicted sex offender has been back in court after he was caught secretly watching adult pornography on his mobile phone.

Ashley Robinson switched his internet browser to Incognito mode before search the internet for pornography ‘sporadically’ over a six-month period.

A search of his seized mobile phone revealed no evidence of the defendant searching for child sexual abuse images, Teesside Crown Court heard.

Chris Baker, prosecuting, said the 32-year-old was issued with a ten-year sexual harm prevention order (SHPO) after he was convicted of possession of indecent images of children and sharing indecent images of children in 2017.

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He said: “The police attended his address to carry out a risk management review on March 19 last year to ensure he was complying with the order. He is prevented from using the incognito mode on his mobile phone by his order.

“When checking the history, it was apparent that the history only went back until February 2021 and the last review that had taken place was in September 2020.

“He immediately admitted using his device in incognito mode to browse adult pornography websites and said he had no excuse for it.”

The defendant admitted to officers that he ‘sporadically’ used the incognito mode to watch adult pornography and there was no evidence that he had been Robinson, of Eastmount Road, Darlington, pleaded guilty to breaching the terms and conditions of his SHPO order between September 1, 2020, and February 1, 2021.

Duncan McReddie, in mitigation, said the former computer designer in the construction industry was now unemployed and was suffering from anxiety following his previous conviction.

He added: “He has shown a high degree of cooperation and candour with the probation service, perhaps more than we often see in cases such as these.”

Judge Chris Smith sentenced Robinson to 12 months in custody, suspended for 12 months.

He said: “The order was imposed to provide the authorities with the provision for some risk management strategies, the ability to look at your browsing history and you made the deliberate decision to circumvent them knowing that there was a prohibition in place.

“You made a decision to break the law and ignore that court order and you did it more than once over a few months.”

Robinson was also ordered to carry out 80 hours of unpaid work and attend 20 rehabilitation activity requirement days.

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