A MAN has been jailed after a judge told him he had “deliberately thwarted” police in checking his internet access.

Craig Anthony Griffiths, 42, of Wern Las, Rhos, admitted to breaching the terms of a sexual harm prevention order by restoring his mobile phone back to its factory reset.

Rhian Jackson, prosecuting, told Mold Magistrates how the police had contacted Griffiths on July 22 this year and told him they wanted to carry out checks to ensure he was complying with the terms of the five year order that was imposed on June 24 2015. Ms Jackson said Griffiths had been hostile to officers during the telephone conversation and when they arrived at his home the next day, his phone was checked and found to have been reset, with no checks on his internet browsing history being possible.

When the officers asked Griffiths why he had done this, he became irate with them and asked for the phone back, and admitted he had carried out the procedure because he had panicked when he found out about the visit because he had been watching “regular pornography” and was embarrassed the female officers would see it.

Ceri Lewis, defending, told the court Griffiths had been having some technical difficulties with his Huwaei P30 mobile phone, including a smashed screen, and because it wouldn’t switch on and off, had carried out the factory reset. She said it had been a “genuine mistake” on his part and that he had felt “ashamed” for watching the pornography, and that the breach was the first he had committed after a long period of compliance.

District Judge Gwyn Jones told Griffiths that the purpose of the order was to monitor his internet use and what content was being accessed and that it was clear he had deliberately failed to comply with the requirements by resetting his phone.

Ordering Griffiths to serve 26 weeks in custody, he said: “You didn’t do it in panic. You did it with the knowledge of someone who has previously worked in IT, knowing full well it would delete all of your browsing history. You did it to thwart officers in the duty to monitor your activities.”