A Swindon man has admitted breaching his sexual risk order (SRO) for the eighth time – by adding a child on Facebook.
Patrick Cunnington, 24, appeared before Swindon Magistrates’ Court this morning having been charged with the SRO breach and remanded in custody overnight.
The defendant, of Radnor Street, was last before the same court two weeks ago, when he pleaded guilty to two counts of breaching his order by failing to declare mobile phones with internet and image storage capabilities. The order prohibits him from owning devices that have not been approved by the police.
He was given the five-year order – preventing him from contacting anyone under the age of 16 – in 2018 after the police presented evidence he was a significant risk to underage girls. Despite that, he has never been convicted of a child sex offence.
Today in court, crown prosecutor Keith Ballinger told of how Cunnington sent a friend request to a 15-year-old girl on Facebook on 1 January this year. She is said to have accepted the request – due to having 50 mutual friends with him – on 14 February.
After seeing reports about the defendant in the news, the girl’s mother was concerned about the fact she was friends with him on the social media platform and contacted the police.
Police officers attended his home address yesterday and carried out a search of the property. No unregistered devices were located.
In an interview in custody following his arrest, he confirmed he know about the conditions of his SRO and admitted sending the friend request to the child.
He told officers he added people he didn’t know on Facebook to “look more popular”. Cunnington said it was a good way of meeting new people, and claimed he would normally check to see if they were underage before adding them – but accepted he didn’t on this occasion.
Defence solicitor Richard Griffiths asked the case to be adjourned for his client to complete the pre-sentence report ordered by the courts at his last appearance in May.
Stating that he was not a user of Facebook himself, Mr Griffiths said Cunnington had simply sent a friend request to the girl, but had not talked to or met her.
“He has 3000 friends on Facebook – he hasn’t met probably three-quarters of them, and won’t ever meet them”, he commented.
Adding: “He should have contacted his mutual friends to check her age, there were ways to check her age but he was in a hurry and didn’t. I ask this is considered as a very minor breach”.
The case was adjourned for sentencing on 22 June, so Cunnington could complete an all options pre-sentence report.
