A paedophile has been spared prison after he breached a strict court order by doctoring characters in a video game to create sex-related cartoon images of children.
Graham Gowland, 61, from Catterick Village, was made subject to a sexual-harm prevention order in December 2020 after he was convicted of making indecent images of children.
The order, which was to last for 10 years, prohibited him from using any internet device without notifying police and using any computer device capable of storing images without police’s knowledge, York Crown Court heard.
It also enabled police to monitor his internet activity, said prosecutor Kelly Clarke.
In March last year, Gowland’s risk-management officer, a detective constable, turned up at his home to install monitoring software on his devices.
Two weeks later, the officer received an email generated by the software warning that Gowland’s “computer activity had shown pornographic material”.
It transpired that Gowland had downloaded special software from the internet to change the characters and their appearance on a video game he was playing.
“It was found that he had 112 live and accessible images on his device that he was prohibited from having as part of the sexual-harm-prevention order,” said Ms Clarke.
Using the modification software, Gowland had created animated characters as naked pre-pubescent females and males.
“One of the female characters was seemingly having sex with another male animated figure,” added Ms Clarke.
Another child animated character had a sex-related caption superimposed on her cartoon image.
Police found three other naked child cartoon characters, as well as an image of handcuffs.
Another female cartoon character had a collar around her neck.
During forensic analysis of Gowland’s device, officers found one file on which there were simulated recordings of very young female and male voices making numerous sexual comments.
They also discovered that Gowland had used private and incognito browsing modes on search engines between January and April 2024, which was also in breach of the order.
Gowland, of High Street, was arrested on April 8 last year and charged with breaching the sexual-harm prevention order and possessing prohibited or animated images of children.
He admitted the offences and appeared for sentence at York Crown Court yesterday.
Ms Clarke said that Gowland had one previous conviction from 2020 when he received a 16-month suspended prison sentence and the sexual-harm order at Teesside Crown Court for three counts of making indecent images of children.
At yesterday’s hearing, his defence counsel was spared the need for mitigation because Judge Simon Hickey said he was prepared to give Gowland another chance, citing prison overcrowding as one of the reasons.
The judge revoked the existing sexual-harm-prevention order and made a new one for another 10 years, containing eight separate prohibitions to curb Gowland’s online activities and “stop you using the internet in a criminal and unhealthy way”.
Mr Hickey noted that it was Gowland’s first breach since the initial order was made five years ago and he had also considered the impact his imprisonment would have on his partner, which meant that he could suspend the inevitable jail sentence.
Gowland received an eight-month prison sentence, but this was suspended for 18 months.
He was ordered to sign on the sex-offenders’ register for another 10 years.
