A SEX offender from Carlisle “inadvertently” breached his sexual harm prevention order by downloading file-management software on to his phone.

The app that police found on the device owned by Stuart Ramshaw, 47, could also be used as a “file cleaner” and to give the user access to a “secure” online storage facility – though there was no evidence he had used the phone for anything illegal.

Nor had he used the secure storage or file cleaner.

At the city’s crown court and judge said the case illustrated the need for police and prosecutors to keep pace with the rapid pace of computer technology as it continuously develops.

His comment came after Ramshaw's use of the file manager programme triggered both the prosecution and the commissioning of expert reports on whether or not his limited use of the software breached his court order.

It prohibits the use of any software capable of deleting internet history, though the prosecution accepted that Ramshaw had the app simply to organise and manage the content that was on his phone. 

The defendant, of Garden Street, Carlisle, admitted a single count of breaching the terms of a ten-year sexual harm prevention order which was imposed in 2015 for an offence involving indecent images of children.

Gerard Rogerson, prosecuting, said the case came about after the defendant’s police offender manager visited him in June, 2022, and found the file manager app on his phone.

Despite the software’s capacity to enable access to secure storage and “cleaning” of content, those features of the app were not used. There was no evidence Ramshaw used his phone to look for or at illegal images.

Nor was there evidence of such material being deleted from the phone.

It was the first time in the eight years since the sexual harm prevention order was imposed that the defendant had been in trouble for breaching it.

Judge Nicholas Barker accepted that the breach was “minor and technical” in nature, and it had also been “inadvertent.”

He observed that computer technology had changed significantly since the original order was made and the CPS and police needed to “step back” and take a considered view and arrive a policy for dealing with such cases.

Judge Barker imposed a one-year conditional discharge on the defendant.

He urged the defendant to take advice from his police offender manager in future to clear up any uncertainty about the legality of his plans to use new software on his device.

The prosecution did not proceed with three other alleged breaches of his order that were linked to the software found on his phone.

Mr  Rogerson said it was not in the public interest to proceed with those allegations, given that the two experts consulted could not reach a final conclusion about the software involved and so it would be unfair to expect a jury to do that.