A high-risk sex offender who preyed on underage girls broke his court order when he bought an internet-enabled television using a benefit payment.
Jason Davidson was caught out when police turned up at his home unannounced and discovered the smart TV in the property at Waterloo Place, Inverness.
The 24-year-old was visited on June 16 2021 to check that he was complying with the conditions of a Sexual Offences Prevention Order (SOPO).
But it was then discovered that Davidson had failed to tell the police that he had a telly which was capable of connecting to the web.
Davidson had used a backdated benefit payment to make the purchase, his defence solicitor advocate Neil Wilson told Inverness Sheriff Court.
‘Maximum risk of re-offending’
The sex offender from Nairn had already served time in a young offenders institution after he was convicted on February 16 2018.
He had previously admitted to defying an earlier court order banning him from contacting underage girls.
Police successfully applied for a prohibition order on Davidson in February 2016 because there was a risk that he would inflict sexual harm.
Davidson pled guilty to sending sexual messages to four girls aged between 12 and 15 and visiting two of them, between September 17 2015 and May 1 2016 – both before and after the ban was imposed.
He had invited two of his victims to perform sex acts on him and offered to send indecent images of himself, but both of them refused his advances.
Davidson, aged 19 at the time, was sent to a young offender’s institution for 27 months after social workers assessed him as at maximum risk of re-offending.
Sentenced to unpaid work
At the time, Sheriff Gordon Fleetwood imposed a SOPO to restrict Davidson’s access to young girls and the internet for five years.
He was also placed on the sex offenders register for 10 years and told that he would be supervised by social workers for three years upon his release from custody.
Sheriff Fleetwood warned Davidson that if he breached any of the court orders, “it will inevitably result in you being returned to the young offender’s institution for a significant period”.
But after Davidson appeared in the dock and admitted breaching his SOPO by failing to notify the police about the smart TV, Sheriff Eilidh Macdonald ordered him to carry out 40 hours of unpaid work.
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