Evil Kettering child rapist is put behind bars again

A child rapist from Kettering whose evil crimes were described as the most disturbing police had seen has been locked up again.

Andrew Short, formerly known as Kevin Short, was jailed in 2010 after raping his victim and filming himself horrifically abusing her.

A judge deemed the 55-year-old such a danger he imposed an indeterminate public protection sentence, telling him he would not be released until it was safe to do so and until he had spent at least seven-and-a-half years behind bars.

Short was later freed and subjected to a sexual harm prevention order in 2019, restricting his use of devices and contact with females under 18 in a bid to monitor him and deter him from further crimes.

But he's now back in prison after breaching the order when he reformatted his laptop by reinstalling the Windows operating system.

Yesterday (Thursday) Northampton Magistrates' Court heard the paedophile, of Cecil Street in Kettering, was selling an item online on January 4 this year when he ran into technological difficulties.

Prosecuting, Julie Costello said: "He explained that he was selling an item on eBay and got a black screen.

"He said he could not mend it and got frustrated.

"He thought if he used the original hard-drive he could reboot it."

Short then reinstalled the Windows system, rebooted the laptop and it worked.

But his actions meant he had committed another crime as he was banned from reformatting any device he used.

Ms Costello said: "He realised it may be an issue and he spoke to probation and his offender manager."

Police then visited his address to inspect the laptop, which had been completely reformatted, and he was arrested.

The court heard Short was then recalled to prison on licence and is now a serving prisoner.

Because of his original sentence any future release from custody will be subject to a parole board decision.

Yesterday he appeared over videolink from HMP Lincoln to admit one charge of breaching a sexual harm prevention order.

Prosecutors dropped a second charge of breaching the same order by installing software which had the capacity to clean functions of a computer.

Magistrates sent the case to Northampton Crown Court, where the paedophile will be sentenced on March 5.

When he was originally jailed Short admitted 18 offences including child rape, sexual activity with a child and possessing thousands of indecent images of children.

After the court hearing in 2010 Detective Constable Lisa Miller and Detective Support Officer Christine Bolton, who led the investigation, said: “This is one of the most disturbing cases we have worked on and we are pleased with the sentence today."