R v Jordan 2025
In 2018, J was sentenced to 30 months' imprisonment for three offences of inciting a girl under 13 to engage in sexual activity, breach of a Sexual Harm Prevention Order (SHPO), and failure to comply with requirements of a suspended sentence order. At that time, J was made subject to a further SHPO dated 9 February 2018 for a limited period of five years.
On 28 March 2020, Public Protection Officers attended J's address where they discovered he had thrown a flash drive out of his bedroom window. J admitted using his mother's computer to access the internet, visiting Pinterest to download images of children aged around 15. He failed to disclose his Pinterest account and admitted to deleting internet search history on his mother's computer, both actions prohibited by his SHPO.
On 18 August 2020 in the Crown Court at Cambridge, J was sentenced to six months' imprisonment suspended for 24 months with rehabilitation requirements for two counts of breaching the SHPO. At this hearing, the judge also imposed a further SHPO to last indefinitely.
On 22 March 2025, J pleaded guilty to two further charges of breaching the 2020 SHPO by deleting material from his mobile phone. When the case came before the Crown Court at Huntingdon on 4 June 2025, it was noted that the 2020 SHPO appeared to be an unlawful order. J sought leave to appeal against the imposition of the 2020 SHPO and applied for an extension of time of 1,743 days in which to do so. The case came to court to determine whether the 2020 SHPO was lawfully imposed, with J challenging its validity after it was questioned during subsequent proceedings.
J, represented by Mr Fleming, argued that the SHPO imposed in August 2020 was unlawful as breach of an SHPO is not an offence listed in either Schedule 3 or Schedule 5 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003. J cited existing case law as authority that a new SHPO cannot be made when a defendant appears before the court for breaching an existing SHPO.
Held
Appeal allowed.
The Court of Appeal granted J's request for an extension of time of 1,743 days and quashed the SHPO made in August 2020, finding it to be unlawful. The court noted that the relevant Chief Constable in the area where the J resides might consider seeking the (re)imposition of an SHPO pursuant to section 103A of the Sexual Offences Act, which would need to follow the proper legal procedures.
The court examined section 103A of the Sexual Offences Act 2003, which sets out the power to impose an SHPO only where the defendant is dealt with for an offence listed in Schedule 3 or 5 of the Act. The court confirmed that breach of an SHPO is not an offence listed in either Schedule 3 or Schedule 5 of the Sexual Offences Act. They also determined that "where a defendant is convicted in later proceedings of breaching an existing SHPO, there is no power to impose a new SHPO in those later proceedings."
The court followed the precedent set in R v MT [2023] EWCA Crim 531, where a similar situation had been considered and a new SHPO imposed following conviction for breaching a Sexual Offences Prevention Order was held to be unlawful. They also cited R v Wilkes [2022] EWCA Crim 525, which demonstrated that “there is no different approach depending on whether the defendant is before the court for breach of an SHPO or an SOPO.” The court considered whether the 2020 SHPO could be considered a variation of the 2018 SHPO under section 103E, but rejected this possibility as section 103E prescribes who may apply for a variation, and no application by a relevant officer was made. It was concluded that the judge in 2020 "did not have the power to make the order he made" and that it was "in the interests of justice to grant the lengthy extension of time and to quash the order."
Reproduced with permission of Reed Elsevier (UK) Limited, trading as LexisNexis.
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