Police win paedophile internet ban

Gary Thomas is banned from using the internet and mobile phones

A Welsh police force has won what is thought to be a ground-breaking ruling which bans a paedophile from using the internet and mobile phones.

Gary Geoffrey Thomas, 37, lured a 14-year-old mid Wales girl into having sex with him after grooming her via an internet chatroom.

He was also sentenced to 18 months in jail after the jury at Mold Crown Court heard how he had sex with the youngster, one of 15 underage girls he had met in internet chatrooms.

Detectives asked the court for the order after they discovered Thomas - described as "predatory" - had made more than 1,000 calls on his mobile phone to schoolgirls.

It emerged in court that Thomas, a railway guard from Swadlincote, Derbyshire, visited the girl at her home when her mother was working and they had sex in her bedroom.

It is part of our assessment on how someone commits an offence as to how we monitor them - we go to people's homes, we monitor their activities and who they are with Detetective Sergeant Diane Davies

He also took the underage teenager to a bed-and-breakfast hotel, where he posed as her father.

The girl's mother called the police when she found an intimate text message from Thomas to her daughter.

In addition to the 18 months' custody, Judge Huw Daniel also banned Thomas, who admitted three counts of unlawful sex, from subscribing or using the internet or mobile phones of any description for the next five years.

The order has been welcomed by Dyfed-Powys Police Detetective Sergeant Diane Davies, who asked for the ruling.

She said: "It is part of our assessment on how someone commits an offence as to how we monitor them. We go to people's homes, we monitor their activities and who they are with.

"In this case, we felt that the offending was of such a serious nature and it was so extensive, we wanted to use all the legislation available to us safeguard the wellbeing of the public and to make sure that we used every opportunity for punishment for him.

The ban is thought to be one of the first of its kind

"We are satisfied that we can monitor this restriction, otherwise there would have been no point in us applying for it in the first place."

However, John Carr, an internet consultant for the children's charity NCH, said he understood what the police were trying to do but doubted they would be able to police the order.

He told BBC Radio Wales: "The simple truth is there are thousands of internet cafes on the high streets and back streets of every urban area in Britain.

"You can walk into one of them, give someone a quid in cash and set yourself up an internet account in less than three seconds.

"It requires absolutely no proof of you name, address, telephone number or anything, and the same applies with mobile phones - you just pay cash in a shop and walk out with one."

Thomas had denied two further charges of having unlawful sex with the girl and abducting her, which were left on the file when the prosecution offered no evidence against him.