A convicted paedophile ordered himself a Chromebook then lied to the police about it – barely a month after being given a suspended sentence for looking at child abuse images.

Martyn Rodger, 26, whose financial affairs are managed by Oxfordshire County Council as a result of his various mental health difficulties, had asked his social worker for the money to get the laptop last September.

The Chromebook was ordered to his Witney home by Argos in early September.

READ MORE: Latest results from Oxford Magistrates' Court

Police knew about the order, having been told about it by the county council.

They were expecting Rodger to tell them about the new laptop. A condition of a sexual harm prevention order, imposed a month earlier when he was given a suspended sentence for possession of indecent images, required him to register any new internet-enabled device within three days.

But by September 16, when the officers knocked at his door, he still hadn’t notified them of the Chromebook.

Prosecutor Cathy Olliver told Oxford Crown Court that Rodger initially claimed he didn’t have any new devices.

When the officers found it hidden underneath his mattress, he claimed – falsely – that it had only been delivered the previous day. He said he was planning to declare it the next day.

He said he’d used the Chromebook to look at adult pornography online.

Rodger, of Eastfield Road, Witney, pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to breach of his sexual harm prevention order. Appearing at the crown court last Friday, he was asked if he admitted that that conviction put him in breach of a 12 month suspended sentence imposed last August. He replied: “Indeed.”

Mitigating, Gordana Austin said her client suffered from a number of mental health difficulties, including a personality disorder.

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He spent much of his time alone in his room and his computer was his link to the outside world. Rodger was described by his barrister as ‘isolated’.

Sending him to prison for 18 months, Judge Maria Lamb told the defendant: “I am sure it was made perfectly clear to you on that occasion [August 13, 2021, when he received the suspended sentence] what the consequences would if you committed any further offence and within a month you had breached the sexual harm prevention order that had been made on the occasion in August 2021 by failing to notify you had a Chromebook that had internet access.

“I am quite satisfied you knew perfectly well you should have notified [the police of] the existence of that Chromebook.”

His sexual harm prevention order will continue and he must continue to register as a sex offender on his release from prison.

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