Convicted child sex offender sent to help mum and her five children move house
A mum-of-five has hit out at her landlord and the police after a registered child sex offender was sent to help her and her children move house.
The woman, who we are naming only as Laurie, was moving between Aspire Housing properties in North Staffordshire when the incident happened.
She says she only discovered who the man who’d been in her house was when a Facebook friend request was sent by him to her daughter the following day.
But she says the response to the incident from both Aspire and Staffordshire Police has seriously undermined her confidence in them.
Aspire has apologised for the incident, but said the work being carried out wasn’t a job that would have required background checks to be carried out on the firm it had contracted.
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And Staffordshire Police has said that no offence has been committed by Chris Brown.
At the time Brown was subject to a Sexual Harm Prevention Order that he was given in 2017, when, aged 29, he was jailed for two years for exchanging explicit photos with a 13-year-old boy.
Brown, who remains on the Sex Offenders Register, was back in court in August 2021 for breaching the order by deleting Snapchat messages.
Chris Brown is on the sex offenders register (Staffordshire Police)Brown told Stoke on Trent Live he had reason to believe from conversations with the girl that she was over the age of 18 - a claim Laurie strongly rejects.
Laurie, 33, who has four other young children living with her at home, said: “I’m baffled that the police seem to think that if someone just tells them they thought someone was over 18, that’s good enough for them.
"They haven’t investigated this properly at all as far as I’m concerned.
"They took no statements from me or my daughter, they just seem to have taken his word for it and left it at that. It’s disgusting.”
Brown was helping out local removal firm Bailey and Cooper Removals, which is owned by his stepfather, when he went to the woman’s home.
When the Facebook friend request arrived the following day, Laurie contacted the police.
She said: “I rang them and then later on they came back to me to say they’d been round to check his devices.
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"That told me something was up, so I asked if that meant what I thought it meant, but they wouldn’t say. So we looked him up on Google and found out about his court cases. I was sick to my stomach.
“All they would say was that they’d been to see him and that as far as they were concerned, everything was ok. They were going on about ‘having a duty of care to him’ and all that.”
Staffordshire Police confirmed it had visited Brown, and that there had been no breach of his sexual harm prevention order (SHPO).
The now-expired SHPO imposed by the court did not forbid him from making contact with all children, only boys under 18.
Laurie said she found that “astonishing”, adding: “Why would anyone impose an order that only protected boys, not girls as well?
"These orders should be made with the protection of all children in mind.”
The Crown Prosecution Service says some SHPO orders include stipulations that mean offenders cannot have contact with anyone under the age of 18.
It is understood the SHPO Brown was subject to was not extended when he breached it in 2021.
Brown said that he had made the offender supervisor from the police aware that the girl was “posing as 24”, and that the offender supervisor said “she was already aware of this and had requested the daughter to remove it from her Facebook page” - a claim Staffordshire Police has denied.
Laurie said no-one from Staffordshire Police has spoken to her daughter about her Facebook page, and denied any suggestion her girl had anything on her profile to suggest she was 24.
She added: “I’m only 33...
"And anyway, he was with us all day, talking to us, asking questions.
Laurie claims: "She told him about being off school, about her Saturday job. He’d found out enough about her to be able to find her on Facebook."
Aspire Housing sent someone round to help with the move (Google)She added: “You’d have seen other profile pictures immediately below that clearly show she’s a schoolgirl, and they’re dated as being uploaded only weeks before.
“But the police didn’t seem to think anything of it."
A Staffordshire Police spokesman said it had initially received a complaint of “suspicious cyber-related activity”.
The spokesman added: “At the time of the incident, the individual was subject to a SHPO that only applied to boys aged under 18.
Police confirmed Brown did not breach his SHPO. They added: "No criminal offences were identified as part of our inquiries."
In September last year, a month after the incident involving Brown, Staffordshire Police was ordered by what was then Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Service to make “urgent improvements”.
A specific area of “serious concern” to the watchdog was how it investigates crime, responds to the public and monitors suspects and offenders.
When Stoke on Trent Live contacted Brown about his interactions with Laurie, he said it was “complete nonsense” that there had been any conversation about the girl’s school.
Brown added: “Bailey and Cooper is owned by my stepfather, who is aware of my previous convictions. I have on occasion helped out my stepfather - for example if he has been let down by his usual porter or if he has just needed an extra pair of hands for a couple of hours.
“With regard to the matter last August - yes, in the course of helping out on the job the woman and daughter started conversations with me and the daughter gave me the impression by what she said that she was over 18.
“I looked at her Facebook page, which said she was 24, so I sent her a friend request.
“The following day my offender supervisor spoke to me to make me aware of her actual age. I made my offender supervisor aware that she was posing as 24. [She] told me that she was already aware of this and had requested the daughter to remove it from her Facebook page.
“That same evening, the daughter sent a Facebook request to my actual father, who is 69 years old.
“My offender supervisor took no further action with regard to myself but pointed out that I needed to be extra diligent in the future.
“I no longer help out my stepfather. I have made mistakes in the past and am still paying the price. I am just trying to get on with my life as peacefully and quietly as I can with my adult partner, who is aware of my past.”
When asked what had given him the impression the girl was over 18, Brown added: “The girl’s demeanour, what she was wearing, her make-up, that she said she worked - all this intimated she was over 18.”
Bailey and Cooper Removals said it had no idea of Brown's convictions and said the business "would never hire someone like that intentionally."
When Brown was in court for breaching his order in 2021, the judge was told by his defence solicitor that he would be “able to gain employment with his stepfather”.
Laurie questioned why Brown was not subjected to a DBS check. Aspire Housing said that the removal firm’s remit did not meet the criteria for the check.
Under the current law, housing associations can’t legally ask for workers to have the background checks done, unless they are going to be working in supported accommodation where the elderly, people with mental health problems, disabilities or learning difficulties live.
Head of neighbourhoods at Aspire Housing Jon Dickin, said: "On this occasion, we used a new contractor due to lack of availability from our usual supplier. We would like to reassure our customers that we will not be using this contractor to undertake any further work."
Dickin added: "We are sorry to hear about the impact this incident has had on the affected customer and their family, and we will continue to work with and support them in any way we can."
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