A Crayford man has been given a suspended prison sentence after admitting attempting to communicate sexually with someone he believed was under 16.
Ashley Acott, 29, of North Road, appeared at Sevenoaks Magistrates’ Court on Thursday after committing the offence on 2 March last year. The court heard that he intentionally attempted to communicate sexually with a person he believed to be under 16 for the purpose of obtaining sexual gratification.
Acott pleaded guilty to the offence on 24 September. He was sentenced to 12 months in prison, suspended for 12 months, with the court stating the offence was so serious that only a custodial sentence could be justified. However, the sentence was suspended because there was considered to be a realistic prospect of rehabilitation.
Acott was also ordered to complete 120 hours of unpaid work and must register with police for 10 years. He was ordered to pay £85 in prosecution costs and a £187 surcharge.
Five-year prevention order
A five-year sexual harm prevention order was imposed, placing extensive restrictions on his internet use and contact with children. The restrictions include requirements allowing police to inspect his internet-enabled devices and prohibitions relating to private browsing, automatically deleting messages and deleting internet histories.
He is also prohibited from having unsupervised communication with children under the age of 16, subject to specified exceptions including approved contact.
A suspended sentence means the custodial term has been imposed but will not be served unless the offender commits a further offence or breaches the conditions of the order during the suspension period. In this case, the 12-month term hangs over Acott for the next 12 months, alongside the unpaid work, the registration requirement and the five-year prevention order — a package the court evidently considered sufficient to address both punishment and rehabilitation, given the realistic prospect of reform it identified.
The timeline of the case stretches back more than a year and a half: the offence was committed on 2 March 2025, Acott pleaded guilty on 24 September 2026, and sentence was passed on Thursday. Breach of a sexual harm prevention order is itself a criminal offence that can lead to imprisonment, which gives the five-year order real force beyond the suspended term.
Other recent cases before the courts include seven men charged over unfit meat and animal cruelty and a Battersea man found guilty over the death of a pensioner he punched in Balham. The prevention order’s device-inspection and browsing restrictions reflect how such cases are now policed in practice: the sentence does not end at the courtroom door, but continues through monitoring of the offender’s online activity for years afterwards.
