A 15-year-old tech-wizard who bought an old mobile phone from a car boot sale has helped police jail prolific sex offender Karl Fox.
The teenager who had an interest in technology and fixing broken phones turned on the phone and managed to gain access after discovering the passcode was saved as the lock screen image.
It was then that he was automatically subjected to a series of indecent images that appeared unprompted as a slideshow, alongside text notes about child abuse.
Once the slideshow had finished, a sinister message appeared on the screen referring to hopes that a young child would find the phone followed by more disturbing images and references about the phone’s previous owner.
A North Yorkshire Police spokesperson said: "The teenager, who was understandably horrified by what he had seen, attended one of our police stations along with his mother to hand in the phone and provide officers with details about what he had discovered.
"We carried out an extensive investigation and were able to identify the owner of the phone as 51-year-old registered sex offender Karl Fox of Burton Stone Lane in York.
"Thanks to evidence found on the phone we were able to prove that Fox had breached a Sexual Harm Prevention Order (SHPO) 15 times.
"The SHPO had been handed to him in 2004 following offences of outraging public decency. We also uncovered further pseudo indecent images of children and graphic self-written fantasies about child sexual abuse on a number of other phones that were found at his home address."
Fox was arrested and remanded in custody before he appeared at York Crown Court at the end of last month charged with 15 breaches of a Sexual Harm Prevention Order (SHPO), indecent image of children offences.
He was sentenced to two years and four months in prison, handed an indefinite registered sexual offender (RSO) status and given an SHPO preventing him from, among other, using any computer of device capable of accessing the interest, having contact with any child under the age of 16 unless inadvertent or from entering or loitering around any leisure centre and or swimming pool.
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Speaking about the quick-thinking actions of the teenager, Detective Constable Charlotte White, who led the investigation, said: “It was Fox’s goal for a child to find the phone and his actions meant that a 15-year-old boy was subjected to viewing the horrific and revolting contents within it.
“But without the teen recognising the seriousness of what he had found, and having the courage to report it to us, we would not have known that Fox was brazenly breaching his conditions.
“I’d like to take this opportunity to thank him as his quick-thinking actions meant we were able to launch a full investigation leading to Fox’s arrest and subsequent imprisonment.”
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