Scarborough sex offender jailed for 12 months after breaching strict court order

Matthew Dunning, 28, from Scarborough, was ordered to sign on the sex-offenders’ register for life in 2016 after he was convicted of sexually abusing a teenage girl.

As part of his notification requirements as a registered sex offender, Dunning had to inform police if he was living or staying at any household with children.

However, he breached that order in 2018 and did so again earlier this year when he was found to have been staying with a woman and her children for three weeks.

Dunning, of Pavilion Square, ultimately admitted the breach and appeared for sentence at York Crown Court.

Prosecutor Celine Kart said that Dunning was supposed to notify police within three days if he was living or staying at a household with children.

The woman with whom he had been staying provided police with a statement confirming he had been staying at her house and that she wasn’t told about his previous convictions for sexual offences, nor about his notification requirements.

In 2016, Dunning was jailed for three years and eight months and placed on the sex-offenders’ register for two offences of sexual activity with an under-age teen girl in a Ryedale park.

He had sent text messages to the girl to arrange a meeting and asking her if she would have sex with him.

She told him she didn’t want sex but travelled with a friend to meet him at a park in Thornton-le-Dale, where Dunning lived at the time.

The friend went for a bike ride and while she was gone, Dunning had full sex with the girl and got her to perform a sexual act.

Dunning received the notification requirements as part of his sentence for those offences and was also made subject to a sexual-harm prevention order.

Defence counsel Charlotte Noddings said Dunn never had any unsupervised contact with the children at the woman’s home, but that the risk was there.

She added that Dunn, a father-of-three, was an isolated figure who had problems with alcohol and anxiety.

He had worked on building sites but was currently off sick due to alcohol abuse and depression.

Recorder Dapinder Singh KC said that Dunning had “deliberately concealed” his criminal record from the woman and deliberately breached the order.

He also cited “some concerning comments” in a probation report which stated that Dunning “lacked awareness and understanding of the consequences of (his) offending” and that he still posed a risk of harm to children.

He told Dunning: “This offending is so serious, and your circumstances are so (serious)…I just cannot see how this sentence could not be an immediate custodial term.”

Dunning was jailed for 12 months but will only serve half of that sentence behind bars before being released on prison licence.

He will remain on the sex-offenders’ register for life.