A serial offender who poses a significant risk to children has been given an extended sentence to protect the public. Jamie Nugent-Squires, 40, has a history of offending and concerning behaviour involving children, including sexually assaulting a five-year-old girl at a beach and taking looked-after teenagers back to his home and plying them with alcohol and drugs.
Judge Huw Rees at Swansea Crown Court said it was clear from the defendant's history of offending and from the contents of the pre-sentence report that he is "highly sexually preoccupied" and has "persistently and actively looked for opportunities to offend".
Breach of court order
Tom Scapens, prosecuting, told the court that in 2022 the defendant was sentenced to 42 months in prison and made subject to a seven-year sexual harm prevention order, one of the conditions of which was not to have unsupervised contact with children. That offending had involved Nugent-Squires being found hiding a boy and a girl who were missing from children's homes in a wardrobe in his bedroom, and then a few weeks later taking two boys, also vulnerable teens living in care, back to his home where they drank alcohol and took drugs, and he suggested getting amphetamine as it "makes you really horny".
The prosecutor said in April this year, in breach of the 2022 order, the defendant began chatting on Snapchat and then WhatsApp with someone purporting to be a 14-year-old boy. In fact, Nugent-Squires, who has previously gone by the names Jamie Roberts and Jamie Whelan, was chatting to a decoy account being run by an adult. The court heard that during their conversation the pair chatted about football and other topics, and Nugent-Squires asked the "boy" if he was gay and told him he would like to have someone like him as a boyfriend. The barrister said the defendant also talked about meeting up and said he would buy "poppers", the common name for the drug amyl nitrite. Nugent-Squires also sent the decoy pictures of himself.
Arrest and previous convictions
The court heard the defendant arranged to meet the "boy" in Neath town centre on April 16, and the defendant was arrested outside the town's Specsavers shop as he waited for the contact to arrive by train. The prosecutor said in his subsequent interview the defendant accepted chatting to the decoy but denied there was any sexual intent, and he then became "irate" and pushed a police laptop to the floor causing the screen to crack.
Jamie Gerald Paul Nugent-Squires, formerly of Min yr Afon, Ystalyfera, Swansea Valley but now of Llys Dyfnant, Clyne, Neath Valley, had previously pleaded guilty to attempted breach of a sexual harm prevention order, attempting to meet a child after sexual grooming, and criminal damage when he appeared in the dock for sentencing. He had also previously pleaded guilty to racially aggravated harassment and to a public order offence both committed on October 18 last year at Cardiff Central railway station. That offending saw Nugent-Squires racially abusing a station security guard and telling him: "Go back to your own country - you shouldn't be in my country." He also called a female Transport for Wales worker a "dirty slag" and told her he was going to "smash her face in" and that he hoped she got raped.
The defendant has 21 previous convictions for 26 offences. In 2001, when he was aged 14, he was convicted of indecently assaulting a five-year-old in a shower block at a beach. In 2004 and 2005 he breached the sexual offending prevention order he was subject to and was sentenced to three years' detention in a young offenders' institution.
2022 offending
In 2022 the defendant was sentenced to 42 months in prison for two separate pieces of offending involving vulnerable children living in the care system. On that occasion the court heard that on December 21, 2021, police in Swansea were notified that two teenagers, a girl and a boy, had failed to return home to their respective care homes by the allotted curfew times the previous night. The police investigation led to the defendant's flat in Skewen, and at 3.40am officers knocked on his door. The court heard the lights were on in the property but the officers' knocks went unanswered, though they noticed the blinds in a window were twitching. Officers kept knocking and eventually the defendant answered, and despite being fully clothed he told his callers he had been asleep. The house was searched and it initially appeared the defendant, who was then going by the name Roberts, was alone. However, officers noticed a big pile of bedding and clothes stacked up in front of a wardrobe in one of the bedrooms, and when they moved the items and opened the wardrobe they found the missing children hiding inside. The teenagers were returned to their care homes and Roberts was arrested.
The second incident happened on February 28, 2022, and involved the same teen boy along with another male youth who was also living in care. On that occasion Roberts met the boys at Swansea railway station and took them back to his home in Skewen. During the evening the trio drank alcohol and the two teens smoked cannabis, and Roberts suggested getting amphetamine as it "makes you really horny". At around 4am an argument broke out and Roberts chased the boys from his flat, apparently at knife-point. One boy rang his care home and a member of staff drove to Skewen to collect him and the defendant was again arrested.
Sentence
Matt Murphy, for Nugent-Squires, said the defendant was "struggling" on remand in the custodial environment, and said he would take advantage of as many rehabilitation and educational courses as he could while in prison to ensure he can "move on in society in a more constructive manner" upon his eventual release. The barrister added that his client wants to apologise to his victims and apologise to the court for the way he has presented at previous hearings.
Judge Huw Rees said as "distasteful and pejorative" as the language used by the defendant at Cardiff railway station had been, of more concern was the defendant's sexual interest in children. He said it was clear from the defendant's history of offending and from the contents of the pre-sentence report that he is "highly sexually preoccupied" and has "persistently and actively looked for opportunities to offend". He said imprisonment in the case of Nugent-Squires was "not only necessary and entirely deserving", but he had come to the conclusion that given the high risk the defendant poses to children a standard sentence was not sufficient to protect the public.
With discounts for his guilty pleas, Nugent-Squires was given an extended five years and 11 months sentence comprising two years and 11 months in custody followed by an extended licence period of three years. The defendant must serve two-thirds of the custodial element of the sentence before he can apply to be released, but it will be for the Parole Board to determine if he is safe to be let out. Nugent-Squires will be a registered sex offender for the next 10 years.
