Registered Hartlepool sex offender jailed at Teesside Crown Court for secret Snapchat contact with six schoolgirls

Anthony Metcalfe, 34, from Hartlepool, had been banned from having contact with children under 17 or using undeclared aliases or equipment to roam the Internet without the knowledge of his monitoring team under the conditions of a Sexual Harm Prevention Order.

But his activities were exposed when his supervising police officer found a tablet hidden under his mattress, said prosecutor Rachel Masters.

It showed that he contacted six girls aged under 16 using Snapchat. The youngest was aged 12.

He used expressions such as "nice bum" and "beautiful".

A judge at Teesside Crown Court said that it exposed the girls to the dangers of sexual grooming.

He had also been in contact with a woman with children without telling her he was a registered child sex offender, said prosecutor Miss Masters.

Metcalfe had served prison sentences for indecent assaults on under-age girls and for previous breaches of Sexual Harm Prevention Orders.

When he was last released from a four-year jail sentence he did not give his address to the police until they discovered that he had a bed in a garden shed.

Stephen Constantine, defending, said it was clear from Metcalfe's pre-sentence report by the Probation Service that he had mental health issues.

He added: "He says that he finds it very distressing talking to people about them but he now realises that he needs to engage.

"He now realises that so long as he continues to find himself in these situations he will continue to be prosecuted.

"It is clear that his communication was limited to those described by Miss Masters."

Judge Howard Crowson told Metcalfe, of Willow Walk, Hartlepool: "You have got a worrying record and these were wilful breaches.

"There was a real risk of very serious harm with the consequence of grooming at times."

The judge added: "I will view this as a pattern of offending and with the aggravating feature of your own record."

Metcalfe was jailed for 32 months after he pleaded guilty to six breaches of the Sexual Harm Prevention Order and failing to comply with registration requirements.