A man who breached court orders preventing him from interacting with children unsupervised three times has avoided jail.

Michael Bingham, 30, of Kennet Avenue, Swindon, was convicted in 2019 of sexual activity including penetration with a child who was 13 years old and was given a sexual harm prevention order as well as 53 months in custody. 

As a result of this, he was 'forbidden from having contact with any female under the age of 16 except through daily life or contact with all guardians' knowing consent'. 

But after being released in 2021, he breached this order when in April last year he added the 13-year-old daughter of someone he knew on Snapchat, and would go on to send two photos of his penis to his Snapchat story, which the minor saw. 

The two other breaches relate to a time he took a child on a day trip to the beach without that parent's full awareness of his previous conviction, and without permission of child social services, and to other times when he was unsupervised by an adult authorised by social services with a different child. 

Despite Judge Jason Tyler KC's said he was concerned he may have been repeating a pattern of grooming behaviour that was similar to the previous offence he was convicted of.

Bingham escaped a custodial sentence and was instead given three concurrent sentences, with the longest being 10 months, suspended for two years. 

When delivering his sentence, he said: "This is not the first time you have been in trouble, you were convicted of sexual activity with a child under the age of 16, who was 13, and the circumstances of that were parallel. 

"The pattern of behaviour, which appears to be designed to infiltrate yourself into a family and groom the daughters of a family friend, bares similarities to your previous offending.

"And indeed, the probation service has highlighted serious concerns, but these are serious concerns, it says, that can be safely monitored in the community. 

"So I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt, but you need to understand that if you come up again for a breach of your order, which still has ten years or so left, you will not be given this opportunity again. 

"You are on a tightrope, and if I see you again I will have no doubt that you were being devious and you were being clever and demonstrating an emerging pattern of behaviour. You would go out through that backdoor before your feet could touch the ground."

He added that the two-year suspended sentence was longer than he'd ordinarily give, and also required Mr Bingham to attend 13 rehabilitation activity requirements. 

"You really must understand how close you have come, I saw you came prepared with a bag, that was a good idea, if you come back bring your bag because you won’t be going out."

The court heard from Mr Bingham's counsel, Mr Wylde, that he had a health condition that meant he couldn't remember committing the first two breaches, relating to Snapchat and the day trip to the beach but had the 'good sense to admit culpability and plead guilty'.

My Wylde added that Mr Bingham has now moved away from the area and is living with his parents and grandparents who are 'committed' to supervising him and ensuring that he does not reoffend. 

"It is my submission that Mr Bingham's life progress and rehabilitation should not be unduly stymied by a custody," Mr Wylde said. 

"If you remove him from his family, from therapy and from his partner and daughter, you would stymy that hard work and introduce an element of risk."