Sex offender back in jail for not complying with court order

A sex offender previously jailed for getting girls to send him naked photos is back behind bars after he failed to notify the authorities he was in a new relationship with a partner who had two young children.

Rhys Lynn, 27, was jailed for 16 months after he admitted failing to notify the police of his new partner’s address and breaching his Sexual Harm Prevention Order on four occasions.

Lynn, formerly of Hawthorn Avenue, Cherry Willingham, and now of The Quays, Gainsborough, was sentenced to five years and four months imprisonment at Lincoln Crown Court in February 2019.

In addition to his jail term, Lynn was also given an indefinite Sexual Harm Prevention Order and told to comply with sex offender notification requirements.

Those orders required Lynn to notify the authorities if he began a relationship which put him in possible contact with children or if he was staying at a new address.

Lincoln Crown Court heard Lynn started working at a chicken factory in Gainsborough and began a relationship with a woman who had two young children around a year after he was released from prison.

Caroline Bradley, prosecuting, said Lynn did not disclose his offending to the woman and on occasions would act as a babysitter for the children and stay at their address.

There were also other child visitors to the property, and Lynn also visited a friend who had a teenage daughter, Miss Bradley told the court.

Lynn was arrested after the authorities became aware of the contact.

During interview he admitted failing to disclose his new relationship to his risk offending manager and the Probation Service because he was happy.

Neil Sands, mitigating, said Lynn had been successfully co-operating with the Probation Service for a year after his release from prison before this new relationship began.

Mr Sands told the court Lynn’s best mitigation was his early guilty plea and candour with the police.

Passing sentence Judge Catarina Sjolin Knight made it clear there was no evidence of further sexual offending.

But the Judge told Lynn: “I understand the desire for happiness, but you have a history others do not.”

Lynn’s sentence hearing in 2019 was told he posed as a teenager and also threatened his victims that he would distribute images of them that he had already obtained if they did not send him even more.

That hearing was told the five girls involved, one of whom was only 12, were left badly affected by their contact with Lynn over the internet with a number of them having to undergo counselling.

One later told police that her chances of success in her A levels had been completely wrecked by him.

Lynn had set up accounts on sites such as Instagram and Snapchat using fictitious names claiming he was a teenage boy, his original sentence hearing was told.

Four of the girls sent him naked photographs of themselves and Lynn also sent sexual images of himself to them

Before being sentenced in 2019 Lynn admitted five charges of causing or inciting exploitation of a child, two charges of causing a child to watch a sexual act, a further charge of inciting a child to engage in sexual activity and three charges of making a total of 1,218 indecent images of children.

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