Sordid Wigan pervert admits to court order breach


A Wigan man who was jailed for pursuing a girl on social media and bombarding her with explicit messages has admitted to breaching an order aimed at preventing him from striking again.

Noel Rigby was given an 18-month prison sentence in 2017 after a Liverpool Crown Court jury found him guilty of inciting sexual activity with a child.

His punishment also involved his being placed on the Sex Offenders’ Register and being subject to a Sexual Harm Prevention Order for 10 years.

Now released, he was caught by police on January 14 this year in possession of a laptop, mobile phone and smart phone.

These are items which the order requires him to inform officers about, because they are all capable of storing images and accessing the internet.

But he had not revealed his ownership of or access to them.

The 59-year-old, of Conway Road, Ashton-in-Makerfield, pleaded guilty to three charges of possessing such devices and not reporting them to his police offender manager within three days of purchase.

He was remanded on unconditional bail pending his sentencing at Bolton Crown Court on Wednesday, April 17.

The Liverpool trial two years ago heard that Rigby stopped his car on a Wigan street alongside a group of five or six girls, who were aged 15.

He asked if one could fix his phone, but she said she could not.

He also said he wished they were all over 18 and then made a lewd remark to the 15-year-old victim.

The next day the girl, who could not be named for legal reasons, began receiving Facebook messages from the then 55-year-old, inciting her to engage in a sexual act.

The hearing was told Rigby asked her to make sure she was deleting the messages.

But she told her parents and, after the police were notified, Rigby was arrested.

Rigby had denied the charge, telling the jury that the girls must have misheard him when he met them in the street, and claimed that he was telling them about reincarnation and had not made any lewd overtures to the teenager.

He also denied sending the girl any Facebook messages, but was found guilty by the jury.

After the hearing, one of her parents said: “As a result of what happened to my daughter, I saw her change almost overnight.

“My little girl, who was happy and confident, disappeared and in her place was a closed and quiet child.

“I found this heartbreaking and difficult to deal with because I didn’t know how to make it better for her.

“As a family we have experienced many emotions throughout this investigation, but we are eased by the fact the case has been heard in court and we can achieve some closure.”