A convicted Larne Paedophile sex offender, Stephen Ford Hutchinson, who violated a court order and a previously suspended sentence by downloading a social media application without authorisation, was sentenced to eight months in prison today after expressing grievances about being a ‘digital soldier.’
At Antrim Magistrates Court in Ballymena, District Judge Nigel Broderick sentenced Stephen Ford Hutchinson, 70, stating that he had been “extremely fortunate” to receive a suspended sentence for the primary offences of attempted sexual communication with a child.
“Alongside that sentence, the court instituted a Sexual Offences Prevention Order aimed at mitigating the risk to the public, particularly concerning sexual communication with minors,” he informed Stephen Ford Hutchinson.
The judge expressed that it was “particularly concerning” that Stephen Ford Hutchinson had downloaded and utilised the Telegram app, which, according to law enforcement, “is infamous for being employed by criminals attempting to conceal their actions and behaviour.”
Earlier this year, Stephen Ford Hutchinson, residing on Curran Road in Larne, acknowledged violating the SOPO on 7 April by downloading the application without prior authorisation from his Designated Risk Manager.
The SOPO, an order established to safeguard the public, was implemented last year following Stephen Ford Hutchinson’s conviction for attempting to engage in sexual communication with a minor between 18 July and 1 August 2022.
The pensioner, who pleaded guilty to three charges of possessing severe pornography, was caught by a paedophile hunter organisation whose decoy posed as a 14-year-old girl.
The court was informed that he had exchanged highly sexualised conversations with the decoy, and under the impression that he was communicating with a teenage girl, he transmitted explicit photos of himself.
During the contest, Stephen Ford Hutchinson’s testimony was at times bizarre as he claimed that he was a “digital soldier” helping to combat against “dark forces” involved in “molesting children and sexualising children, indoctrinating them in schools and cannibalism.”
“I believe it involves Satanic ritual child abuse and worldwide trafficking of children,” the 70-year-old told the court, claiming that at the time of the offending he had been “tracking what was purported to be the greatest military intelligence operation in the history of the planet.”
“It was an online thing, I’m not a member of it, just tracking that’s all and we had been led to believe that there was an emergency alert system imminent whereby a worldwide alert had been put out and the military would come in and take over.”
In October last year, Judge Broderick imposed a five-month jail sentence, suspended for three years and commented that “from what he has told probation that he is living in a different world – he seems to be delusional.”
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