A MAN who repeatedly breached a sex offender’s order by deliberately befriending women with young children and spending time at their homes has been jailed.
Convicted paedophile Anthony Hall had pleaded guilty to three charges of breaching the order imposed by Norfolk magistrates in 2003.
Hall (53) of Hornsley Close, Henley Green, Coventry, who had a previous conviction for similar offences, was jailed for two years at Warwick Crown Court.
Judge Alan Parker warned him: “If you do it again when you are released, you will go to prison for longer and longer.”
Prosecutor David Jackson said in 1984 Hall, who lived in Nuneaton at the time, was put on probation for three years for indecent assaults on children, and two years later jailed for having sex with a 13-year-old girl.
The order in 2003 banned him from entering or remaining at any address where a child under 16 was present.
Four years later Hall had been given a suspended sentence at Norwich Crown Court for four breaches of the order.
Then in January this year a Coventry woman who Hall had befriended received a text informing her he was a registered sex offender and suggesting he posed a risk to children.
The woman, who regularly cared for her two-year-old grandson, had been introduced to Hall by his partner, and he had been a regular visitor to her home, helping out with DIY.
When she confronted Hall, who had bought presents and sweets for her grandson, he claimed although he had been arrested for sex offences against children, he had never been charged.
When he was arrested on January 5 Hall admitted he had been in breach of the order, but said that he had ‘just wanted to live a normal life.’
He pleaded guilty when he appeared before magistrates two days later, and the case was adjourned.
Then later in the month information came to light that he had befriended another woman who was the legal guardian of a seven-year-old girl, and had regularly visited her home.
It had started with him doing some DIY for her, but after that he had become ‘a bit of a nuisance,’ turning up uninvited.
Through that woman, Hall had also met a mother-of-five who had been looking for someone to up her garden – but after doing the work he kept turning up at her home, and she had eventually refused to answer the door to him.
Marcus Harry, defending, said: “There was a lack of any inappropriate behaviour over and above him befriending the families.”
Jailing Hall, Judge Parker told him: “You have shown a determination to befriend women of a particular age with particular circumstances. Your intention was potentially very sinister indeed.. The public must have confidence that orders of this kind are complied with.”
