A former BBC Radio Bristol presenter, previously jailed for child sex offences, has been sentenced to 29 weeks in prison for breaching his sex offender notification requirements. Peter Rowell, 67, admitted two breaches of the order, including staying for more than 12 hours at a property with a child under 18 without informing police.
Rowell travelled 30 miles from his home in Wickwar, South Gloucestershire, to Pontypridd, South Wales, to stay at an address without notifying authorities. He also failed to report an address where he had stayed for seven days or longer between November last year and March.
In 2012, Rowell was sentenced to six years in prison for 12 counts of indecent assault on girls under 16 and for possessing more than 400 indecent images of children. The offences occurred between 1989 and the early 1990s, when the victims were under 16.
Rowell, who hosted BBC Radio Bristol's Afternoon Show and worked as a news reader for ITV West, was also a DJ for commercial station GWR in the 1980s. He was reported missing in March 2011 after failing to present his radio show, and was later arrested in Cumbria.
Sentencing Rowell in 2012, Judge David Ticehurst described his public image as hiding a dark secret, stating he used his celebrity status to attract and abuse young girls. The judge noted the offences involved five separate girls over five years.
