Hmmmm.

I really hadn't planned to add anything to the Jon Venables child porn thing. I've said more than once both here and elsewhere that I think he got off bloody lightly both times, but that his behaviour leading up to the point he was caught seems almost like he was deliberately trying to get caught doing something that would send him back inside. I was going to leave it at that until I found this:

A novel approach to finding accommodation was revealed by a convicted sex offender this week – as it was explained in court on Monday that he had downloaded child porn in order to be sent back to prison.

David Clark, 54, of Willington Green in Maidstone complained to all and sundry - including his MP - that despite his putting in scores of applications for a council house, he had achieved no result.

Clark, who had previously been jailed for four-and-a-half years in respect of two separate serious sex offences in 1997 and 2004, was then so annoyed by the the lack of progress that he decided to go looking for images of naked pre-pubescent and pubescent girls in sexual poses.

According to Clark, he was aware that the police would check his laptop, at which point he would be sent back to prison. When the police did catch up with him, in August 2009, he had been living in temporary accommodation in Maidstone for two years.

Though it proves nothing apart from the fact that it does happen it doesn't sound a whole lot different to a convicted child killer choosing the time of his Probation Officer's imminent arrival to attempt to remove a hard drive full of filth with a tin opener. If so then I don't see any reason not to oblige them, especially when the original sentence was light.

Magistrates released Clark on bail pending sentencing next month. He is now subject to an interim sexual offences order which bans him from associating with children under 16 and using the internet.

On the brighter side, however, the magistrates warned Mr Clark – who now has a home - he could be sent to jail.

D'oh!