23-year-old Northamptonshire man jailed after downloading Tinder and Instagram while under sexual harm prevention order

Louis Davies, of The Crescent, Flore, appeared at Northampton Crown Court on June 21 where he pleaded guilty to seven counts of failing to comply with Sex Offenders’ Register notification requirements and one offence of breaching his SHPO.

The 23-year-old was subject to a SHPO order after he engaged in an online conversation with someone he believed to be a 14-year-old girl between December 2022 and January 2023. The conversation included exchanging explicit messages and sharing images of a sexual nature. However, the “teenage girl” was a decoy from an online activist group, and Davies was charged with attempting to engage in sexual communication with a child, attempting to cause a child aged 13-15 to watch/look at an image of a sexual activity and attempt to cause/incite a girl 13-15 to engage in a sexual activity.

When he was sentenced for the offences, he was issued with his 10-year SHPO, along with a 16-month prison sentence, which was suspended for two years.

The SHPO conditions included not using any computer or device capable of accessing the internet unless it has capacity to retain and display the browser history as well as notify police within three days of any online usernames, according to Northamptonshire Police.

On April 30 this year, Davies was arrested during a routine visit by officers after he admitted breaching the conditions of his SHPO.

He admitted to installing, deleting, and then reinstalling various social media apps on his phone – including Snapchat, Tinder, and Instagram – on three or four occasions over a two-month period.

Lead investigator, PC Mark Edkins from the Force’s MOSOVO Team, said: “Louis Davies rightly, has very strict notification requirements he is expected to abide by, however, his actions clearly demonstrated a total disregard for the sanctions imposed by the court.

“We take an absolute zero-tolerance approach to situations like this, if a breach is identified, there are no second chances and I hope this case demonstrates how extremely serious we take the management of sex offenders.”

Davies was sentenced to 18 months in prison, which includes 12-months for breaching his suspended sentence – and eight months for the new offences.