A PAEDOPHILE, given a suspended sentence less than two years ago for child porn offences, has returned to court and admitted possessing more than 500 indecent images of children.

Now the director of a children’s charity has questioned how Ian Whittaker was allowed to offend again.

Whittaker, aged 50, of the Esplanade, Weymouth, pleaded guilty to 12 offences of possessing indecent images of children and three charges of making indecent photographs of a child between September 27 and October 8 last year.

The indecent images were graded, with level one being the least serious and level five the most serious.

The possession charges Whittaker admitted involved 559 grade one images, one image at level two, one at level three and a grade five moving image.

The charges of making indecent photos related to three grade one images.

Whittaker had been sentenced to a total of eight months imprisonment, suspended for two years, with a supervision order in August, 2009 after he admitted 20 counts of making indecent images of children, which related to more than 100 grade three and grade four images.

He was also ordered to attend a sex offenders’ programme and was banned from owning any electronic device, mobile phone or computer with the capacity to send data or take photos.

On that occasion Whittaker was spotted on a child porn website at a training centre for the unemployed. A subsequent search of his home computer uncovered 127 indecent images.

At the time Claude Knights, director of Kidscape, slammed the punishment as a ‘slap on the wrists’.

After hearing Whittaker had admitted committing further offences two years later, Ms Knights said: “It is distressing, but not surprising to learn that this committed predator has once again been found to create and possess indecent images of children.

“We have to ask why this was allowed to happen when a two-year supervision order and suspended sentence set in 2009 banned him from owning any electronic device, mobile phone or computer with the capacity to send and take photos.

“The ineffective monitoring of Ian Whittaker’s life since his suspended sentence gives weight to the call for a sustained custodial sentence.

“It seems reasonable to state that he has not learned any essential lessons, and that he continues to fuel the trade in these abhorrent images, each one representing a crime against children.”

Judge Roger Jarvis adjourned the latest proceedings for a pre-sentence report to be prepared.

He told the defendant: “You face a very real risk, even an inevitability, of going into custody but before I make my mind up I want to know a bit more about you so I am going to require the preparation of a pre-sentence report.”

Whittaker will return to Dorchester Crown Court to be sentenced on June 17.

He was remanded in custody after Tim Shorter, representing Whittaker, said his client wished to be remanded ‘for his own safety’.

Mr Shorter said: “He has been the subject of a number of threats in the community.”