Last chance for Hartlepool gamer who breached sexual harm prevention order

Thirty-two year old Sam Smith was using it to make Paypal payments for his onscreen hobby before the police rumbled him, said his lawyer.

He had a police mentor monitoring his mobile phone after a conviction last year for internet sex offences.

The officer spotted 25 occasions when Smith had used a banned alias in breach of the order imposed in February last year for five years.

Three months later his offending manager visited his home and checked his phone, said prosecutor Jenny Haigh.

She told Teesside Crown Court: "Smith was aware that he should not be using an alias."

Stephen Constantine, defending, said in mitigation: "He lives at home with his father and he spends a lot of his time on computer games.

"Alongside the aliases were a lot of invoices from Paypal. The alias had existed before his was convicted last year.

"There is nothing sinister about any of them."

Smith, of St Catherine’s Court, Hartlepool, pleaded guilty to breaching the Sexual Harm Prevention Order imposed for five years on February 9 last year by Teesside magistrates.

The judge told him that if it happened again he would go to prison.

Recorder Ian Mullarkey said: "You find yourself here today with the prospect of being sent to prison.

"But today that is not necessary but you must understand that any further abuse of your order and that is what will happen."

Smith was sentenced to a three-year community order and ordered to complete up to 40 days of rehabilitation requirements.