Paul Neary
Paul Neary, a male transvestite, was convicted in 2016 at Liverpool Crown Court of possessing indecent images of children but received a suspended sentence rather than being sent to prison. He was also told to sign the sex offenders’ register and made subject to a sexual harm prevention order (SHPO) for 10 years.
When being visited by a police officer under the terms of the SHPO in 2020, she discovered by chance that Neary, 47, had been working as an ice cream seller on Crosby Beach, Sefton, over an 18-month period.
Neary had also been unwilling to open the door to her as he was wearing women’s clothing and his house was ‘exceptionally cluttered’ with bags of women’s clothing that he used for cross-dressing, and Barbie dolls and children’s underwear that he had bought from charity shops. Neary was discovered to have taken photos of the dolls mimicking sex acts on him in his home and possessed a number of photos of himself wearing “soiled girl’s knickers” (i.e. children’s underwear he had masturbated into) in the public toilets opposite his van, and had also laid out children’s underwear on the sand dunes nearby.
On discovering Neary was working as an ice cream vendor, Merseyside Police applied to Liverpool Crown Court to vary the terms of Neary’s SHPO to protect the public. In court Judge Anil Murray said he was sure photos of Neary wearing children’s underwear in public toilets “depicted sexual activity” and that he had “powerful” sexual impulses associated with children, which he had “given in to” near his van. He then added “That means that those impulses are so strong that the respondent could not wait until he got home in order to have them satisfied. I am sure that working in the vicinity of children provides stimulation to offend, temptation, and opportunity for the respondent to commit grooming and contact sexual offences against children.”
Judge Murray banned Neary from working as an ice cream vendor, undertaking any activity or employment with girls under 16 and having any unsupervised contact with them. While he suspected Neary viewed the dolls as children, the judge said he couldn’t be sure, and police couldn’t show a link between his dolls and further offending, so he was not banned from possessing the dolls.
Image via Liverpool Echo
Media reports
Liverpool Echo https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/paedophile-ice-cream-van-man-19016455 archive
Liverpool Echo https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/paedophile-ice-cream-van-man-19027081 archive
UK & Ireland Paedophile Database https://uk-database.net/2020/09/29/paul-neary-liverpool/
Daily Mirror https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/paedophile-ice-cream-van-man-22762417 archive
Metro https://metro.co.uk/2020/09/30/convicted-paedophile-battling-police-to-keep-job-as-ice-cream-man-13347242 archive