Youth detention for "manipulative sexual predator"

Monday 20 July 2020

A 20-year-old man, with what the court described as a "dreadful record of sexual offending", has been sentenced to 18 months in Youth Detention after being found in possession of indecent images of children.

Carl Halker, 20, was charged with accessing eight indecent images of underage girls on two separate devices, an iPhone and a HP Laptop, in October last year.

They were Category C images, which are defined as 'images of erotic posing'.

At the time of the offences, Halker already had notification requirements imposed on him from previous offences, meaning he had to allow probation and police to monitor his use of electrical devices. 

It was through this that four images were found on each of the devices; the phone which was his, and a laptop he used that belonged to someone else. 

Halker was arrested and the devices were seized at his home address on 7 February 2020, along with 0.6g of cannabis.

The images, in this case, were also present on a hard drive that was seized and destroyed in a previous investigation. They had been stored in the cloud and re-accessed.

Pictured: Halker was arrested and remanded in custody by police on 7 February.

The Crown Prosecutor said there had been clear attempts by Halker to keep the images out of sight of the authorities. 

“They were deep within the file system, suggesting there was an attempt to conceal them," she said. 

Defence Advocate Liam Roffey said his client's offence "did not involve further victims and further images coming into circulation." He acknowledged, however, that the victims had been "re-traumatised" by Halker's behaviour.

He asked the Court to focus on this particular offence: "We are dealing with a small number of images - the same four images appear on two different devices.” 

Advocate Roffey added that his client does not want to spend the best years of his life in prison.

“He has been proactive and motivated enough with the support of his family to seek independent support," he told the Court. 

Pictured: Advocate Roffey said his client objected to a strict new notification requirement that was recommended by Probation. The Court imposed it anyway.

However, Judge Russell Finch and the nine Jurats were unconvinced, noting the Probation Officer's comments that "local females are victims of [Halker's] self-serving sexual gratification" and that the 20-year-old "has a high risk of re-offending".

"You are a 20 year old with a dreadful record of sexual offending," said Judge Finch. 

"You are a sexual predator, manipulative and not lacking intelligence, and young girls in a vulnerable stage of their development need to be protected."

Halker was sentenced to 18 months of Youth Detention. 

His notification period has been extended to 12 years and a new condition was imposed upon his Probation Order, meaning that he must, by law, notify officers of any physical or sexual contact he has within 24 hours of that contact.

Pictured top: Guernsey's Royal Court.