A sex offender who was spared jail after abusing a vulnerable young boy has been locked up at the second time of asking by top judges.
Nicholas Henshall, 44, from Macclesfield, will spend Christmas behind bars despite being allowed to walk free on a suspended sentence given to him for the offence at Liverpool Crown Court in September.
He was convicted of sexually assaulting a child, but the judge decided not to send him straight to prison.
Henshall’s lawyers said the public interest would be better served by him receiving treatment.
But the case reached London’s Appeal Court as lawyers for the Attorney General, Jeremy Wright QC, attacked the sentence as ‘unduly lenient’.
Senior judge, Lady Justice Macur, agreed with him and ordered Henshall to serve a 20-month jail term.
The least possible sentence that should have been imposed was 20 months’ immediate custody,” she ruled.
Henshall was told to report to Macclesfield police station last Thursday to begin serving his sentence.
The victim was under the age of eight and eventually plucked up courage to tell his mother about Henshall.
Henshall had a previous conviction for a sex crime, having indecently assaulted a schoolboy in the 1990s.
Lady Justice Macur, sitting with Mrs Justice Simler and Judge Peter Collier QC, said there was an element of “grooming” in his latest crime.
And a report compiled on Henshall showed he presented “a risk to the public - and particularly to children”.
“A suspended sentence was not appropriate in this case,” the judge concluded.
At the earlier Crown Court hearing, Maria Marcellus, defending Henshall, a former photographer who works in his family’s business, had argued it would not have been lenient to spare Henshall a jail sentence.
He said: “Because he still denies culpability for this offence it would serve society and the defendant greater if he was given a sex offender treatment programme rather than prison.”
Responding to his lawyer’s plea, Judge Nicholls had told Henshall: “Had you stood before me with no convictions I would have sent you to prison but these offences predate the substantial sentence you served before. Prison would not help you or protect the public.”
