A SEX offender was back in court after he breached a court order within weeks of being sentenced for attempting to meet who he thought was a young teenager for sex.

Phillip Bowley, 53, sent sexually explicit messages – including sending a picture of his penis – to who he thought was a 14-year-old boy on the dating site FabGuys and WhatsApp. The ‘boy’ was actually an undercover police officer.

The decoy said they were 14 and asked if that was okay, and Bowley replied: “Yes, as long as you are discreet”.

Bowley suggested meeting up with the ‘boy’ – offering to pay his train fare – and suggested that they could have “a little bit of fun in a wood”.

He received a nine-month sentence, suspended for two years, on July 4 for attempting to engage in sexual communication with a child, and was ordered to complete 25 days of rehabilitation activity requirement.

He was also made the subject of a 10-year sexual harm prevention order, which barred him from deleting, encrypting or hiding history on any devices or installing software which can clear cached data.

Following his sentencing, Bowley was told to pick up his phone and laptop and to take them to the police’s risk management office for monitoring software to be installed. However, he simply picked up his devices on July 28 and went home, prosecutor Georgia Donohue said.

On August 7, the police asked Bowley again to attend the risk management office, and he did so the following day.

Officers found two types of cleaning software on his devices, Ms Donohue said. These had been activated on July 28 and August 5 to clean files and cached data.

At around 2pm on August 9, the police attended Bowley’s address on the B4315 in Templeton, near Narberth, and he was arrested.

Bowley told the police his devices were running slowly since they had been seized by police, and that he believed the police had damaged them. He said he had installed the software to make them run faster.

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David Singh, defending, said that Bowley “concedes and understands the breach took place within weeks of the order”.

“He recognises his mistake.”

Mr Singh said Bowley had been “looking forward” to working with the probation service to address his sexual interest in underage teenagers.

He added that Bowley’s devices were not operating as they had been, and questioned whether the monitoring software could have been installed before the defendant picked them up.

“That was a serious offence,” Judge Huw Rees told Bowley about his original offence.

“The court could have sent you to prison there and then. The court gave you an opportunity.

“You breached that order by the use of this cleaning software.

“I make it very clear to you that you are on very thin ice.”

Bowley was sentenced to six months, suspended for a year, for breaching the sexual harm prevention order. He must also complete five additional days of rehabilitation activity requirement for breaching his suspended sentence.