Paedophile wins back laptop, iPod and mobile phone

​A former RAF officer who used internet chat rooms and networking sites to groom four teenage girls for sex is being handed back a laptop computer, mobile phone and iPod which were seized from him by police.

Judge Martin Picton ruled that former Flight Lieutenant Nigel Fox can have all three back unless the prosecution can give good reasons why not within 14 days.

Fox, formerly of Cordingley Close, Churchdown, is serving a four-year jail term imposed last April for his offences and was described as every “teenage girl’s parents’ nightmare”.

Defence barrister Christopher Smyth applied to Gloucester Crown Court for the three items to be returned to Fox on the grounds that none of them had played any part in his offending.

“I have been supplied with a list of items seized. None of them has been destroyed yet,” said Mr Smyth.

“There are items Mr Fox takes issue with – an iPod Touch, which is a music playing device – and a laptop. “He says nothing of evidential significance arose from that laptop.

“His Sexual Offences Prevention Order does not preclude him from using a laptop. He says that for all sorts of reasons, educational not being the least, he would wish to use it in the future.”

James Haskell, prosecuting, said he did not know whether the particular laptop claimed by Fox had been used by him for his offending.

But Judge Picton said the crown had been given 14 days from May 11 last year to list which items were used by Fox in the course of his offending to say which should be destroyed.

“It’s nearly a year later and you can't tell me about this laptop,” he said.

“The Sexual Offences Prevention Order is there to stop him using items in a way which might engage the risk factors.

“The only legal basis on which they can be forfeited is if the items were used in offending.”

When Judge Picton jailed Fox, 41, last year he said he posed “a significant risk” to young girls.

Fox had admitted meeting a child following sexual grooming between October 24 and January 12, 2008, incitement to making an indecent photograph of a child, arranging or facilitating the commission of a child sex offence and incitement to make an indecent photograph of a child.

Fox had contacted his victims by texting.

He persuaded one girl to send him pictures of herself in a bra and naked in front of a mirror.

The NSPCC refused to comment on the decision.