South Shields sex offender caught with more than a million child abuse images keeps his freedom

Dean Tones, of Sycamore Avenue, South Shields, was hauled back into court for his latest crime – two years after his original sentencing.

The 35-year-old appeared before a judge at Newcastle Crown Court in September 2022, after pleading guilty to having the giant image stash on a computer.

He was handed a three-year community order, placed on the sex offenders register and given a five-year sexual harm prevention order (SHPO).

The defendant breached the SHPO – which has various restrictions around internet and electronic device usage – just two months later.

For that offence, he was sentenced to a 12-month suspended prison term in a second court hearing.

But Tones has been brought back before a judge, after breaching the order a second time, between Wednesday, May 1 this year and Wednesday, July 31.

He admitted doing so by deleting his Google Chrome internet browser from a device without informing police, an action prohibited under the SHPO.

At South Tyneside Magistrates’ Court, District Judge Zoe Passfield refused to activate the suspended sentence.

She did so on the grounds Tones was working well with the Probation Service on his community order.

But the judge then warned him: “It does worry me that it’s the second breach. There cannot be any more breaches.

“If you’re in any doubt about what your order allows, you must ask somebody.

“There can be no more offences because you’ve now used up all your chances.”

Prosecutor Reece Williamson told the hearing: “A detective constable attended his home address to conduct a home risk review as part of the sexual harm prevention order.

“He found that there were gaps in the history of a Firefox browser. The defendant said he used to use Google Chrome but had deleted it.

“That puts him in breach of the sexual harm prevention order.”

Alastair Naismith, defending, said: “The issue for him is that it’s the second breach of the order in a relatively short time. I think this was down to naivety.

Our free email newsletters deliver South Tyneside’s latest news and sport - sign up online here

“We’ll never know if he was hiding anything, but he should probably have recorded that risk before he did so.”

Judge Passfield extended the year-long suspended sentence by six months and handed him a 12-month community order, with a mental health treatment requirement.

Tones must also pay a £114 victim surcharge and £85 court costs.

His original stash of images was 1,067 at the most serious category A, 917 were category B and over one million at category C.