Campaigning paedophile given lifetime bans

U.K.

A convicted paedophile from Loughborough who campaigned for the age of consent to be lowered has been handed lifetime bans from contacting children or going near play areas, police have said.

Leicestershire Police applied for the court orders against David Joy after a parent spotted him in an alleyway next to a primary school.

The 67-year-old, was given an indeterminate jail sentence in August 2007 for making and possessing indecent images of children - but was released from prison earlier this year.

Before his sentence, Leicester Crown Court was told the ex-teacher was a member of the notorious Paedophile Information Exchange, an international organisation of like-minded people who believe children are sexual beings in their own right.

Joy now faces arrest and up to five more years behind bars if he breaks the terms of the orders, which were imposed at Loughborough Magistrates' Court.

The orders ban him from contacting children, directly or indirectly, and from "lingering" near, or being in sight of, any play area in Leicestershire.

A Leicestershire Police spokeswoman said: "We asked the courts to grant these Sexual Offences Prevention Orders (SOPOs) to assist in managing Joy's behaviour and the risk he poses to children.

"SOPOs place further restrictions on convicted sex offenders. If they breach these orders then this is a criminal offence and could lead to a custodial sentence of up to five years. They are one of a number of means we use to manage sex offenders and protect the public."

Steven Gosnell, defending, said his client had not touched a child for more than 20 years and now led a reclusive life with no access to children.

A legal representative of Joy's at Loughborough Magistrates' Court said his client claimed to have been in the alleyway in the town "unwittingly".

[Ed: If it is possible for any country to have exceeded the U.S. in degree of hysteria and injustice, it is the U.K.  So-called "SOPO" orders ( the Sexual Offences Prevention Order ) are a mechanism enabling some quite scary government law enforcers and sex crusaders to effectively keep men (and it is almost always, thus far, men) under total lifetime control. In this case, a man with a past child porn conviction is going to be on their leash for the rest of his life. The "precautionary principle" is being integrated into British law and society in a most alarming way as a means of curtailing the freedom of those they suspect might commit a crime in the future. ]