A SEX offender from Exminster was caught with an image of a young girl suffering serious abuse when police checked the contents of his phone.

Stephen Cutts was being monitored by an offender manager because he had previously been convicted of material showing children as young as eight being raped.

He was subject to a Sexual Harm Prevention Order (SHPO) but broke it by buying new tech devices without declaring them to the police and by changing the operating system on one computer in a way which could have allowed him to browse the internet without leaving a trace on the computer.

A routine check on his phone in March last year found a single image of a girl who appeared to be about nine suffering abuse. There was also an indecent cartoon of child sex. 

Cutts is a registered sex offender because he was convicted of similar offences in 2019, when he received an eight month suspended sentence and was sent on a sex offenders’ treatment programme. 

A five-year-long SHPO was also put in place at Exeter Crown Court which restricted his use of the internet and was supposed to enable police to monitor his online activity.

Cutts, 37, of Gissons, Exminster, admitted making an indecent image of a child, possession of a prohibited image and breaching a SHPO four times. 

He was jailed for 18 months, suspended for two years, sent on a new 30 session sex offenders’ programme with 30 rehabilitation activity days and ordered to do 100 hours unpaid community work by Recorder Mr James Bromige at Exeter Crown Court. 

He told Cutts: ‘You have been able to acknowledge your sexual attraction to children and are a good prospect for rehabilitation and treatment on an accredited programme.’

Mr Lewis Aldous, prosecuting, said Cutts was found with the indecent material on a Motorola phone on March 8, 2023. A check on his other devices uncovered a laptop which had not been notified and an unnotified new operating system on another device. 

A Samsung mobile was found in June 2023 which had not been declared to the police and in January this year he was found with software which enabled incognito browsing.

Mr Paul Dentith, defending, said the only illegal images that were recovered were on the mobile phone which had been registered with the police. There was no evidence Cutts had broken the SHPO with the intention of doing anything illegal. 

He said Cutts lives a lonely and isolated life with few friends and little contact with family and would benefit from help from the probation service. His only conviction of any sort was the previous offence five years ago.