A paedophile allowed to stay on Facebook by a judge despite using the site to groom his victims is finally behind bars – after luring more young boys in the same way.
Callum Evans posed as a girl on the social networking site to encourage boys to send him naked photos before meeting up with two lads aged 14 to molest them.
Two years ago a judge allowed him to walk free from court with a three-year community order – but did not ban him from Facebook.
Judge Graham Hume Jones said depriving Dower of the site would be “particularly excessive” and deprive him of the “social traffic” his peers took for granted.
But Evans, 21, was back before the same judge on Friday – who heard how he returned to Facebook within weeks of walking free from his court to find yet more victims.
He simply created a new alias and tried to groom 13 boys and one girl aged between 13 and 15 in 12 months.
Taunton Crown Court in Somerset heard how he again posed as a teenage girl to trick them into sending pornographic photos of themselves.
He was found in possession of 648 sexually explicit images of children with a handful in the serious grade four category.
Evans – described as being from a good, middle class working family – was caught when the parents of a 14 year-old boy found sexually explicit photos on his mobile phone.
Police found they had been sent from Evans’ mobile and he was arrested – less than a year after being allowed to remain on Facebook.
He was given the green light to stay on the social networking site in September 2011 when he first appeared at the same court in Taunton, Somerset.
At that time he admitted six charges of making an indecent image of a child, five charges of causing or inciting a child to take part in pornography and two charges of sexual activity with a child.
He has now pleaded guilty to 17 counts of inciting a child to engage in pornography and four counts of inciting a child to engage in a sexual act.
He also admitted breaching his sex offenders’ prevention order on three occasions.
Evans was arrested last August but has been in custody for the past month awaiting sentence after entering his latest guilty pleas.
His Honour Judge Jones remanded him for a further week to be sentenced this Friday (July 12) after hearing how he had been responding to treatment on a programme for sex offenders.
The court heard how Evans was first convicted of possessing indecent images as a juvenile in 2009.
He started using Facebook at 17 to contact underage boys, urging them to send him lewd images with their mobile phones.
If they refused, he posed as ‘Georgina’, ‘Georgia’, ‘Georgie’ and ‘Jade’, and attempted to trade explicit images.
Patrick Mason, mitigating, said Evans, from Queen Camel, near Yeovil, Somerset, was an intelligent but ‘confused’ young man, who had lost his chance of going to university because of his crimes.
He told the court in September 2011: “His offences in some respects are no different to those which other young people get up to over their mobile phones and on social networking sites.”
At that time the judge had said he agreed with Mr Mason that banning him from Facebook would be excessive and isolate him the “social traffic” of his peers.
On Friday Mr Mason did not explain how Evans had returned to Facebook.
But he said: “In essence, there is a single pattern of behaviour, committed for two years between the age of 18 and 20, and due in part to the somewhat addictive nature of the internet.
“It has now stopped because of the treatment programme he has been on.
“He has managed to confront his personal anxieties and been able to engage with his parents and help them understand his sexuality. He is a much-changed young man.”
After the 2011 case Facebook said Evans’ profile had been deleted despite the judge’s decision.
A spokesman for Facebook said: “Facebook’s rules ban convicted sex offenders from using the site.”
* His Honour Judge Jones has found himself at the centre of controversy over his sentencing in other cases in recent years.
Last July he was condemned when he jailed a racing motorist who killed a schoolgirl for just 18 months.
Leanne Burnell, 21, was racing boyfriend Leonard Jones at up to 80mph in rival cars through Taunton when Jones crashed into tragic Amy Hofmeister, 13.
Jones, 42, was jailed for seven years but Burnell, who was convicted of causing death dangerous driving, was only given 18 months to the fury of Amy’s mother.
Jane Hofmeister said: “I don’t believe I have received justice today. Eighteen months – I don’t understand.
“Eighteen months is five months more than it has taken to get this case to court in the first place.”
Last December the judge stunned police and prosecutors when he freed a Romanian who was part of a gang that fleeced £3 million from 9,000 people in a cash machine con.
Leonid Rotaru, 32, was caught fitting an ATM machine with a skimming device that copied card-holders’ details.
And in April 2011 the judge said he was forced to free a pervert who downloaded over 6,000 sexual images because a prison sentence would not be long enough to rehabilitate him.
