Gary Horn

Gary Horn, a 36-year-old man from Thornley, County Durham, faced charges at Durham Crown Court for breaching a Sexual Harm Prevention Order (SHPO) imposed following previous sexual offences. The SHPO had been put in place by Newcastle Crown Court in May 2020, when Horn received a suspended prison sentence for unspecified sexual offences. As part of the order, he was prohibited from accessing certain online chat rooms and required to preserve his internet history for monitoring purposes.

In November 2023, police monitoring Horn's internet activity detected non-compliance, leading to his arrest. He admitted to six counts of breaching the SHPO during a plea hearing at Durham Crown Court on 2 January 2024. Five of the breaches involved joining restricted chat rooms, including Fifty Flirty, Granny Space, Granny Site, and Extreme Chat. The sixth breach was the deletion of his internet history, which violated the order's transparency requirements.

Defending Horn, barrister Chris Morrison highlighted that the breaches occurred more than five years after his original offences, with no further incidents reported since. Morrison noted that Horn had secured a responsible job, was in a stable relationship, and had received treatment for depression. He requested a pre-sentence report from the Probation Service to inform the court's decision.

Recorder Mark McKone agreed to the preparation of the report but cautioned that all sentencing options, including immediate custody, remained open. Horn was granted bail and ordered to return to court for sentencing on 5 February 2024. The judge reminded him that his sex offender registration and SHPO conditions continued to apply in the interim. Two additional charges related to using online aliases were not pursued by the prosecution, given Horn's guilty pleas to the six breaches.

The case was reported by The Northern Echo, with coverage by crime and court reporter Bruce Unwin, emphasising the ongoing risks posed by non-compliance with protective orders for sex offenders.