Paedophile was caught ordering teenage girl to perform sex acts in video call just months after being released from prison for almost identical offences as judge blasts him for ‘learning nothing’ from his time behind bars and jails him for nine years

A pedophile was caught ordering a teenage girl to perform vile sex acts over a video call, just months after being released from prison for almost identical offences.

Ethan Rich was found to have targeted the 14-year-old in 2023, with police finding recordings of him masturbating while encouraging her to perform actions against herself on a phone he wasn’t supposed to have.

On the device, officers discovered that the sex offender had logged into multiple social media sites, including WhatsApp, Telegram and Snapchat, using the name of American painter Bob Ross as a pseudonym.

The discovery was made just five months after he was released from prison for almost identical crimes involving targeting a 15-year-old girl, something for which he was jailed for three years in 2020.

Locking him back behind bars at Swansea Crown Court last week, Judge Paul Thomas KC said it was clear Rich had learned ‘nothing – or at least nothing positive’ from his time in prison.

While in custody for the most recent crimes, Rich’s lawyer said he has been learning French in hopes of joining the French Foreign Legion when he is released.

But that will take more than half a decade, after he was given an extended sentence of twelve years and nine months, consisting of nine years and nine months in custody, followed by an extended license period of three years.

Swansea Crown Court was told Rich was originally sentenced to three years in prison in August 2020 for child abuse involving a 15-year-old girl. WalesOnline reports.

Hannah George, prosecuting, said the defendant was involved in recording video calls with the child in which he induced his victim to perform sexual acts on herself, giving her instructions and telling her to ‘moan’ as she did that.

As part of that 2020 sentence, he was made subject to a sexual harm prevention order, with conditions including a requirement to register phone ownership and a ban on having social media and chat website accounts in names not shared by the police were approved.

The court heard the Carmarthenshire man was released from prison on license in November 2021, but was returned to custody within two months over concerns about his contact with women on social media and messaging apps ‘for sexual purposes’. He was assessed as having ‘a high degree of sexual preoccupation’.

The prosecutor said Rich was released again in May 2023, but when police went to his home for a routine visit in August, they discovered he had an unregistered phone in the caravan he lived in behind his mother’s house.

Police were also informed that he was staying at an address in Cellan, Ceredigion, without informing authorities.

The court heard at the time that Rich was working as a shepherd for a woman he met in a pub.

It later emerged that although he had disclosed his previous arson conviction to his new employer, he had not disclosed his sexual beliefs.

In October, police received information that Rich had been communicating with a 14-year-old girl and officers went to arrest him.

The suspect’s phone was seized and while officers were arresting him, they heard another cell phone vibrate.

Police asked him if he still had a cell phone and he said he didn’t, but officers found the unregistered phone under his seat.

Examination of the phones revealed that Rich had accounts on a number of platforms such as WhatsApp, Telegram and Snapchat under various names, including Bob Ross.

They also found a number of recordings of video calls with a 14-year-old girl in which Rich encouraged the child to perform sexual acts on himself and masturbated in front of her.

The prosecutor said the new offense was “strikingly similar” to the one he was jailed for in 2020.

Ethan Rich, of Cwmann, Carmarthenshire, had previously pleaded guilty to a total of 17 offenses including failing to comply with sex offender registration requirements, breaching a sexual harm prevention order, inciting a child to engage in sexual activity, engaging in sexual activity in the presence of a child, sexual communication with a child and possession of indecent images when he appeared in the dock for sentencing.

He has twelve previous convictions for eighteen offenses including arson, inciting or inciting a child to engage in sexual activity, engaging in sexual activity in the presence of a child and making indecent images of a child .

Georgia Donohue told Rich it was accepted that a prison sentence was inevitable in the case.

She said the suspect was diagnosed with ADHD with attention deficit disorder in 2021 and that “due to his autism he has had difficulty building relationships.”

She said during her conversation with the defendant he told her he did not know why he committed the offenses and that he was remorseful about the “social scrutiny” his family had suffered as a result of his offending.

The lawyer said Rich hopes to join the Foreign Legion upon his release from prison and has started learning French for that purpose while in custody.

Judge Paul Thomas KC said the defendant had returned to sexual offending ‘almost immediately’ after his release from prison and had deliberately ignored the sexual harm prevention order.

He told Rich that it was clear that despite the best efforts the criminal justice system has made to get him to change his behavior, “you have learned nothing – or at least nothing positive.”

The judge said he was aware of the defendant’s mental health problems – problems which are “undoubtedly aggravated by drug use” – but in light of everything he had read about Rich he was convinced that he posed a significant risk of serious harm to young girls and that he be punished as a dangerous offender.

Rich was given an extended sentence of twelve years and nine months, consisting of nine years and nine months’ custody, followed by an extended license period of three years.

The suspect can apply for release after serving two-thirds of the custodial sentence, but it is up to the Parole Board to decide whether he can be released safely.