A sex offender's prevention order is 'unworkable' - because it might prevent him from reading The Radio Times, a court heard. Ian Davidson, 62, was given a punishing sexual harm prevention order banning him from having any image or video of an unclothed or ‘partially-clothed’ child. It followed a conviction where he was dealt with for pointing his camera at children on the beach.
He told police officers that he had taken the memory card out of the camera - but admitted looking at youngsters through the lens. Police made a routine visit to his home in Didcot on August 9, 2021, to check he was complying with his 2007 order. And when an officer looked at one of the files on his laptop she was surprised to find it was a video of naked children.
The officer took the view that the material was not ‘indecent’ and so would not have been illegal to possess - were it not for the fact he had a court order banning him from having images of undressed children. Prosecutor Charles Digby told Oxford Crown Court that Davidson told the police the video was from a legitimate movie made in the 1990s and showed them the film’s entry on filmography website IMDb.
