A child sex offender who hid his past from a mother chatted to her young son while carrying out odd jobs at her home, a court has heard.
Former football and cricket coach Jonathan Davies - also known as Jonathan Harris - is subject to a sexual harm prevention order which bans him from having any unsupervised contact with boys following his conviction for serious sexual offending. But the defendant concealed that past from the mother in the case, and it was only a subsequent internet search that revealed his dark history.
Swansea Crown Court heard that it is not the first time Davies had lied to a mother about his past - he has previously been jailed after befriending a woman and going on a caravan holiday with her and her son.
Details of the breach
Harry Dickens, prosecuting, told the court that in June 2019 the defendant was sentenced to 27 months in prison and made subject to a 10-year sexual harm prevention order after being convicted of eight counts of causing a child under 16 to engage in sexual activity and causing a child under 16 to watch a sexual act.
He said in May this year the defendant was at the home of a Swansea Valley mum to carry out work in the garden - he said the mother knew Davies through friends of friends but had no idea about his past.
The court heard that on the day in question, the defendant spent around half-an-hour talking to the woman's young son in the garden of the property while the mum was elsewhere at the address. Comments subsequently made by Davies to the mother about her son's age led to her becoming suspicious, and an internet search then revealed his past of sexual offending and led to the police being notified.
The prosecutor said when the 31-year-old defendant later became aware that police were looking for him he walked into Swansea Central police station. When arrested and cautioned he told officers: "I already know the score - this had happened so many times".
Previous convictions
Jonathan Davies, formerly of The Kingsway, Swansea, but now of Potters Grove, Templeton, Pembrokeshire, had previously pleaded guilty to breaching a sexual harm prevention order (SHPO) when he appeared in the dock for sentencing.
The court heard the defendant's offending for which he was sentenced for in 2019 related to five young teenage boys to whom the defendant had been sending sexual messages via Facebook and Snapchat.
In 2020 he was sentenced to four months in prison for breaching the SHPO - that offending saw him secretly installing WhatsApp and Snapchat messaging services on his phone, joining dating websites including Match and Elite Singles, using internet search terms such as "teen porn", and visiting online chat rooms with names including "teen chat" and "squirt".
In 2022 the defendant was sentenced to 10 months in prison after befriending a woman he had met at Swansea Market, spending time at the family home, and going on a caravan holiday with her and her son - all without disclosing his past.
Defence and sentence
Jac Brown, for Davies, said after serving his last custodial sentence the defendant had secured stable accommodation, found employment at the steelworks in Port Talbot, and made "pro-social steps" in his life. He said his client now has a job operating heavy machinery for a Carmarthenshire environmental firm and has a partner who was in court to support him. He added that a pre-sentence report had concluded Davies would benefit from "structured intervention" in the community which would "strengthen internal barriers to reoffending".
Judge Huw Rees said the defendant's behaviour was "insidious" and a "cause of concern". He said Davies' third breach of his sexual harm prevention order "merits a relatively substantial period of custody" but said he was prepared to give the Probation Service an opportunity to work with him under the auspices of a "robust" order to address the reasons behind the offending.
With a one-third discount for his guilty plea Davies was sentenced to 16 months in prison suspended for two years, and was ordered to do 200 hours of unpaid work and to complete a rehabilitation course.
The judge told Davies: "This is your last chance. You need to keep away from teenage and young boys".
