A notorious sex offender, who swapped Internet child pornography with Jon Venables –the killer of toddler James Bulger – and became the target of a local hate campaign, was jailed for six months today (Monday).
Leslie Blanchard, 53, formerly from the Great Dunmow and Chelmsford areas of Essex will be released almost immediately due to time spent in custody and has been given the green light to resume Internet dating after the judge scrapped a ban.
He pleaded guilty at Southwark Crown Court to have communicated on an adult dating site called ‘plentyoffish’ and ‘smooch’ and searched adult pornography on February 27, March 16 and July 20, breaching a court order.
“Unbelievably you took the risk of being found out and accessed that material, not once, but three times,” Judge Anthony Pitts told a clearly emotional and tearful Blanchard. “An immediate custodial sentence is inevitable.”
The offences are in breach of a Sexual Offences Prevention Order (SOPO) imposed on October 12, last year after he was convicted on thirteen counts including possessing, making and distributing indecent images of children and facilitating a child sex offence, namely a sexual rendezvous with a 12 year-old girl.
The order prohibits the kitchen fitter and ex-youth football coach from using any Internet chat room or forum or using the Internet except for employment, education or keeping in touch with friends or family.
However, Judge Pitts relaxed one condition and allowed Blanchard to visit Internet dating sites despite his last online romance resulting in his new girlfriend’s teenage daughters being taken into care – where they remain.
Blanchard came to notoriety after he was identified as sharing online child pornography with 27 year-old Venables, who with accomplice Robert Thompson killed two year-old James in 1993.
The killer posed as 35 year-old ‘Dawny Smith’ and sent 120 images to Blanchard, who returned the favour, the Old Bailey heard in July when Venables was sentenced to two years.
Essex Police moved Blanchard to a secret address when locals hounded the defendant and they seized his laptop on July 26.
“He had been using dating websites, two in particular ‘plentyoffish’ and ‘smooch’ and visiting sites of adult pornography,” prosecutor Mr. Simon Clements told the court.
Judge Pitts added: “His addiction in adult pornography, not illegal, but leads him further into child pornography.
“He could not resist going back into it and being in breach……He didn’t really care what the consequences were.”
Blanchard was forced out of his home by a local campaign in December, last year, leaving him unemployable and in £15,000 debt and he was hounded again last summer and fled to a secret hideaway.
The defendant’s latest relationship with the mother of teenage girls ended under the weight of publicity, claimed Miss Marion Smullen, defending.
“That lady has suffered incredibly as a result of the publicity in this case. Her children were taken into care and she has been forced to sign an undertaking not to have contact with Mr. Blanchard.
“This is not a deliberate flouting, but somebody who has been very very stupid and there is not a bit of child pornography on his computer,” added the lawyer. “This is not a man who has gone out and deliberately targeted children
“The level of hostility in the press reporting of him has been absolutely astonishing,” his lawyer Miss Marion Smullen told the court. “For someone to have to cope with that while trying to build a life is an enormous burden.
“This man was very lonely and very isolated and it was a way he thought he could have adult company. This is a very, very sad case.”
The Old Bailey heard that Venables, in messages to Blanchard, claimed to be a 35-year-old married woman called Dawn who abused her eight-year-old daughter.
Venables offered to sell access to the child during a series of messages between the pair and a price was agreed but Venables then broke off contact abruptly, saying Blanchard could not see the girl, the court was told.
Judge Pitts continued the five-year SOPO but axed the Internet-dating ban.
“If you find that useful in finding a partner you are not prohibited from adult dating sites provided that’s all it is.”
The judge added a condition that any computer Blanchard uses must be fitted with police-approved monitoring software and a filter.
“You are in a day or two going to be released,” Judge Pitts told Blanchard. “You have to get on with your life. You must not be in breach of any terms of the SOPO and there is a chance we can make some progress.”
Blanchard will see the judge on January 10, next year for a review.
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