Released dangerous sex offender got girl drunk and took her shopping in Exeter


A dangerous sex offender has been sent back to prison after he was caught trying to chat up teenage girls within months of his release.
Mark Phillips was freed after serving six years of a ten year sentence for having sex with a 14-year-old girl who he threatened with a hunting knife.
Police applied for a Sexual Harm Prevention Order after learning that he was contacting schoolgirls on chatrooms and social media.
He has been jailed after he was caught going shopping in Exeter with a 16-year-old girl, who he also plied with alcohol.
He was declared to be a dangerous offender when he was jailed at Truro Crown Court in 2013 for three offences of penetrative sexual activity with a child.
Those offences involved him starting a sexual relationship with a 14-year-old girl in his home town of Callington when he was 23.
He took her virginity on Valentine’s Day but became controlling, manipulative and abusive and ended up putting a knife to her throat.
He was released from Dartmoor Prison in April last year and was living in a post-release hostel in Exeter when the police discovered he was trying to contact under-aged girls again.
Officers obtained a Sexual Harm Prevention Order (SHPO) which banned any contact with anyone under 18 either in person or online.
He broke the order five weeks later by messaging the 16-year-old, taking her shopping in John Lewis in Exeter, and buying her a can of alcohol.
Phillips, now aged 30 and of Howell Road, Exeter, admitted two breaches of the SHPO and was jailed for two years by Judge Timothy Rose at Exeter Crown Court.
He told him: “You knew exactly what you were doing. You had just been told a few weeks earlier in court not to have any contact with anyone under 18.
“You are a dangerous person who has breached this order within a month or so of it being imposed. Your contact with this girl was deliberate and quite manipulative.”
Samuel Castlehouse, prosecuting, said the SHPO was imposed on December 5, 2019, because of concerns by Phillips’s offender manager about his online activity.
He said: “He was found to be accessing porn sites on a daily basis and had contacts on social media and in chatrooms with females whose profiles and messages suggested they were still at school.
“He was accessing sites and contacting females on various platforms for the sole purpose of meeting his sexual needs.”
His offender manager learned he had been in John Lewis in Exeter with a 16-year-old girl and another sex offender. He bought her a can of alcohol on the same day and exchanged Snapchat messages which he later deleted.
William Parkhill, defending, said Phillips had started a sex offenders’ treatment programme after his release but it had not had time to affect his attitudes or behaviour.
He said similar work will be needed before he is released again, which may not be until the expiry of his original sentence in 2023.