A TWO-timing Ipswich Romeo was exposed as a paedophile when his suspicious fianc�e searched his phone for other women's numbers.

Colin Adwent

A TWO-timing Ipswich Romeo was exposed as a paedophile when his suspicious fianc�e searched his phone for other women's numbers.

Among the 26 indecent images of children on father-of-three John Penfold's mobile were two hard-core pictures of young girls involved in a form of bondage.

Penfold, of Stoke Park Drive, is today beginning a three-year community supervision order after appearing for sentencing at Ipswich Crown Court.

The unemployed 36-year-old is also banned for life from working with children, barred from being alone with anyone under the age of 16 unless it is his own children, and he must sign the Sex Offenders' Register for the next five years. Penfold must also attend a programme for sex offender' treatment.

He had admitted 16 counts of making indecent photos of a child and possession of indecent photos of a child at a previous hearing.

Prosecutor Godfried Duah told the court Penfold and his bride-to-be Michelle Kerry were living together with her children - the youngest of whom was Penfold's - when his secret was exposed.

Mr Duah said Penfold had always been very sensitive about his mobile phone and never left it behind when he went out.

However, on May 10 last year he went to see someone but forgot to take his mobile, which he had been re-charging.

Fearing Penfold had been seeing other women behind her back, Miss Kerry picked it up intending to look through it for numbers of other women.

While checking the phone she realised there were some files that contained photos.

The court heard that when Miss Kerry opened the documents she found a number of images of naked females. Among these were 26 photographs of girls under 16. Twenty-four of the images were Level One, the lowest level assigned to child pornography. However, two of the images were Level Five, the most graphic level of child pornography.

When Penfold returned to the property he found his belongings had been dumped outside. He was subsequently arrested by police, who checked his computer and DVDs, but no further sexual images involving children were found.

David Cason, mitigating, said his client was now living with another girlfriend, whom he had been seeing for about 11 months, and her two children aged six and nine. Mr Cason told the court he believed Penfold already knew his new partner when he was with Miss Kerry.

The court was told Penfold had not shown or sent the images to anyone else.

Mr Cason said: “Mr Penfold had an inquisitive nature and did something he should not have done. It was small number of photos over a short period of time.”

Sentencing Penfold, Judge Peter Thompson said he appreciated there were a relatively small number of images, but two were at the highest level.

He said: “Those images show little girls in some kind of bondage situation.”

LESS than 12 months ago Michelle Kerry was looking forward to her wedding with the man she loved.

Today, she cannot get the vile images her cheating fianc� downloaded out of her mind.

The 27-year-old said she had been prepared to marry John Penfold on August 8 last year, despite the fact he had cheated on her three times previously. The couple, who have a daughter together, had been together for four years.

However, it was when she believed he was having an affair for a fourth time that she checked his mobile phone.

Miss Kerry said: "He had cheated on me before. One of the conditions of me taking him back was that if I got insecure for any reason he would let me look at his mobile."

Although she believed the love rat was cheating, the photographs she found were far more shocking than she bargained for.

The mother-of-three said: "I just shook and collapsed. It's hard to explain how I felt. I was shaking. I thought is this really true? Am I seeing what I'm seeing or are my eyes playing tricks on me?

"I got all his stuff out before he got home and changed the locks. He came home and tried to get in. He wanted to know what was going on.

"I told him what I had found and told him to go away because it made my physically sick. He was like 'what have I done wrong?'.

"I said he couldn't have the phone back and that I had smashed it up.

"My thoughts were just to get him away from my door and my children. The next morning I went to the police."

Although happy with outcome of Penfold's case, Miss Kerry said she is disgusted with what he did.

She said: "Even to this day I look at that man and I don't see his face. I see those little children on his phone and it turns my stomach."

Miss Kerry said despite her feelings she went to Penfold's sentencing in the hope it would bring some closure for her.

"I had to see for myself what the outcome was. I needed to close that door and put this part of my life behind me and move on.

"What I saw will never, ever leave my mind."