February 2016: Connor, of Trinity Road, Bath, admitted breaching a Sexual Offences Prevention Order and was jailed for two years and nine months by Judge Graham Cottle at Exeter Crown Court.

January 2016

Dangerous and notorious paedophile jailed AGAIN

ONE of Britain’s most dangerous paedophiles has been jailed after he flouted an order to stay away from young girls.

John Keeler achieved international notoriety when he became the first Westerner to be jailed in Cambodia for child abuse was also jailed for 15 years for sex offences in Britain.

He was supposed to be living in monitored accommodation in Bath but travelled to Devon in the middle of the school summer holidays and booked into a seaside campsite where he was surrounded by children.

Keeler, who changed his surname to Connor after his release in 2013, was arrested after making lewd comments to a 12-year-old girl in a pub beer garden.

He saw the girl doing handstands and cartwheels and told her ‘do it again please, babe; you’ve got a well fit body’ before asking her to open her legs.

The girl told her family and although Connor tried to walk away they followed and brought him back to the pub to await the arrival of the police.

Officers found a sex toy in the pannier of his motor cycle when they searched his tent at the campsite in Paignton, where he had pitched his tent close to a swimming pool used by children.

Connor, 71, of Trinity Road, Bath, admitted breaching a Sexual Offences Prevention Order (SOPO) and was jailed for two years and three months by Judge Graham Cottle at Exeter Crown Court.

The Judge also recommended Connor should be recalled to serve the remaining five years of his previous sentence, from which he was released after ten years.

He told him: “You breached this order by communicating with a girl of 12 who was on holiday with her foster family and happened to be in the beer garden of a public house.

“You saw this young girl and made very inappropriate remarks as a consequence of which she told her family and you were arrested.

“The circumstances demonstrate the level of risk you pose to young children. It is of considerable significance you were staying in a single man tunnel tent at a camp site where there were children running around in swimsuits.

“A search revealed you had a silicone, flesh coloured replica penis in a box on your motorcycle. It is a further confirmation of the risk you pose.”

The judge ordered the police to draft a new, tighter Sexual Harm Prevention Order which will prevent Connor going to areas frequented by children when he is released.

Jonathan Barnes, for the prosecution, said Connor was banned from any contact with children by a SOPO imposed when he was jailed for 15 years at Taunton Crown Court for indecently assaulting three young girls.

He was sat outside the Inn on the Quay at Goodrington, Paignton, on August 6 at a time when it was packed with families and children, including the 12-year-old.

Mr Barnes said he made three sets of comments after seeing her doing gymnastics, including one in which he said: “Open your legs wider so I can lick them.”

He then walked away but the girl’s foster nephew followed him and brought him back to the pub where he was easily identified by his long white beard.

James Taghdissian, for the defence, said the contact with the girl had been brief and there had been no touching.

He said this was his first breach of the SOPO since his release in September 2013 and police and probation officers who had been monitoring him thought he had been doing well.

He said was living in supported accommodation in Bath which he would lose if sent back to jail.

Connor, who has had several previous aliases, has sex offences on his record going back to 1966. In 1981 he was jailed at Derby Crown Court for taking indecent photographs of girls who he met through a video shop he was running.

He was jailed again for gross indecency in 1986 at Taunton when he was also running a video shop.

On his release he fled to Cambodia where in 2000 he became the first Westerner to be jailed for child abuse. This time he paid a group of eight to ten-year-old girls to perform sex acts in a public park while he filmed them.

He was jailed for three years despite protesting that he had been double crossed by a judge who he had bribed.

On his release he returned to Britain where historic allegations from the 1980s and 1990s had come to light in the meantime.

He was jailed for 15 years ion May 2004 at Taunton Crown Court by Judge Graham Hume Jones, who branded him a “cynical and manipulative paedophile who is a danger to young people.

May 2004

15-year sentence for paedophile

Pictured in 2004

A man once imprisoned in Cambodia for child porn offences, has been jailed again for 15 years for sex crimes against young girls.

John Keeler who once ran a video shop in Taunton in Somerset was convicted of debauchery in the Asian country in November 2000 after being found guilty of making indecent videos of girls.

At the end of a three-year sentence the 59-year-old was deported.

Last week he was convicted at Taunton Crown Court of 19 counts of indecent assault and two of indecency.

The charges related to three girls aged under 16 and involved incidents which took place from the late 1970s to the mid-1990s.

He was cleared on one count of indecent assault.

Sentencing the divorcee and father who lived in the Somerset area, Judge Graham Hume Jones called Keeler a “cynical manipulative paedophile”.

He said: “In my judgment you are a danger to young people.”

In addition to the 15-year jail sentence, Keeler was ordered to sign the sex offenders’ register, was disqualified from working with children indefinitely and was issued with the new Sex Offenders Prevention Order which includes being banned from playgrounds and public swimming pools.

August 2003

A British man convicted of sex crimes against children in Cambodia has been deported.Former teacher John Keeler, 58, from Manchester, was forced to leave after completing a three-year jail term.

He was accompanied by officials from the British embassy to Phnom Penh International Airport.

The Foreign Office has advised the National Crime Intelligence Service of Keeler’s release.

The former headmaster at a local English school was convicted in August, 2000 on child pornography charges.

He had videotaped four girls, aged between eight and 10, who were posing indecently in a local park.

Pornography and literature from a paedophile website were later found stored on his computer.

He was the first Westerner convicted of child sex crimes in Cambodia.

After his arrest, Keeler apologised to his victims and paid the equivalent of £240 in compensation.

But following his conviction, Keeler claimed he had paid £3,450 in bribes to ensure he never went to jail.

He then threw a tantrum in court when the verdict and sentence were announced.