Scarborough sex offender jailed for breaching order designed to protect children

A Scarborough sex offender and career criminal has been jailed yet again after he breached a sexual-harm prevention order designed to protect children.
Garry Afflick.Garry Afflick.
Garry Afflick.

Garry Dover Afflick, 57, a former church-goer from Scarborough, was under a strict order not to delete his search history from any internet-enabled device, York Crown Court heard.

But following an impromptu visit to his home by his police offender manager in May, it emerged that the former crack-cocaine dealer - who has more than 170 offences to his name including kidnap, blackmail and many “horrific” sex offences against young boys - had deleted data from his Samsung phone.

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Prosecutor Jemima Stephenson said Afflick had been placed on the order after being convicted of possessing indecent images of children in October 2017.

He denied breaching the lifetime order but was convicted following a trial at Scarborough Magistrates’ Court earlier this year.

When his offender manager turned up at his home on May 24 for a routine inspection, Afflick told him his phone had been stolen in Scarborough town centre.

“He said he bought a new phone which he registered (with police) within three weeks,” said Ms Stephenson.

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He said that his original phone had subsequently been found and that he had tried to sell it at a pawnbroker’s but that the shop wouldn’t take it, so he sold it to a friend.

However, police enquiries revealed that the shop made Affleck sign a form confirming he had re-set the phone to “factory settings”, thereby deleting its history, and that he had sold it to the shop, which he ultimately accepted but denied deleting any data.

Afflick, of Pavilion Square, appeared for sentence on Friday, September 22, after being remanded in custody.

Ms Stephenson said Afflick had 32 previous convictions for 170 offences including sexual attacks against children dating back to the 1990s.

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These included indecent assault against a boy under 14 years of age, failing to comply with notification requirements as a registered sex offender and making indecent images of children.

In October 2017, he was jailed for 19 months for seven counts of possessing indecent images of children.

In November 2019, he was jailed for three years and four months at York Crown Court for a previous breach of the sexual-harm prevention order by befriending a family with a young child.

Afflick started offending when he was just 13 years of age, subsequently racking up convictions for burglary, theft, public disorder, handling stolen goods, serious violence, supplying Class A drugs, kidnapping and blackmail.

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In 1997, he was jailed for 14 years for indecently assaulting a boy under the age of 16, upon which he was branded a “Fagin-style” sex offender.

In 2013, at Teesside Crown Court, he was given an order banning him from having contact with boys under the age of 18.

In 2001, he was jailed for five years at Winchester Crown Court for two counts of indecently assaulting a child under 14 and a serious sex assault of a boy under 16.

Defence barrister Emily Hassell said that Afflick had had a “difficult background” stemming from a brain injury and had other medical issues.

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Judge Simon Hickey said that Afflick had an “extremely lengthy and worrying record” and had flagrantly ignored court orders in the past which had been designed to protect the public, particularly children.

Afflick was jailed for two-and-a-half years and told he must serve half of that sentence behind bars before being released on prison licence.

He will remain on the sex-offenders’ register for life.