A convicted paedophile released from prison ahead of the end of his sentence has been awarded £2,500 in compensation after challenging licence restrictions he argued breached his human rights.

Wayne Truter, 53, left HMP Leyhill in Gloucestershire after serving five years for sexual offences committed against three boys.

The former IT consultant was then placed in approved accommodation in Northampton as part of the licence period that followed his release.

Tough restrictions were imposed under the Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangements, known as MAPPA, the system responsible for managing offenders considered to pose a risk to the public.

Among the conditions, Truter was required to observe a 7pm to 7am curfew and report to a probation hostel three times during the 12 hours each day when he was permitted to be outside.

These visits were deliberately scheduled at 10am, 1pm and 4pm to protect local children who would be going to and leaving schools.

Truter, who is a British-South African dual national, wanted to serve his licence period in South Africa, but he was denied this opportunity as his passport was confiscated under the additional licence conditions.

The paedophile repeatedly argued that the extra licence conditions were unlawful and an unfair restriction on his freedoms.

His pleas were dismissed by his probation officer Sean Westcott, who thought he was being ‘arrogant’ in telling him how to do his job, and the Parole Board.

But after bringing a judicial review using the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR) legislation, a High Court judge has agreed that they were unlawfully imposed and ruled in his favour.

He concluded that Mr Truter had endured ‘false imprisonment’ in breach of Article 8 of the ECHR, which is the right to respect for a private life.

He was later recalled to prison to serve the remainder of his sentence after refusing to allow an inspection of his electronic device, a tablet, which he had used to compile his judicial review claim.

However, the judge ruled that his recall to prison was appropriate and dismissed Truter’s claim for ‘deprivation of liberty’.

Truter stayed at the approved premises from September 2019 until the end of January 2020.

His Honour Judge Tindal said that Truter has a better understanding of the justice system than the Probation Service.

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He said: ‘Mr Westcott took over Mr Truter’s case as his probation officer in September 2018, about a year before Mr Truter’s entitlement to release at the end of his custodial term. 

‘Mr Westcott met Mr Truter on a couple of occasions, the first being on March 7, 2019, shortly before the hearing of the Parole Board in March 2019 at which Mr Truter sought release.

‘I accept Mr Truter’s evidence that he argued to the Parole Board they should release him because they could impose additional licence conditions which the defendant (The Secretary of State for Justice) at the end of the custodial term six months later could not.

‘I do not criticise Mr Westcott for this given the inaccurate guidance, but he understood as arrogance what was actually a correct statement of law by Mr Truter.

‘It was not the first or the last time where Mr Truter has pointed out to the defendant a particular point which is, in fact correct, but its officers do not accept it, thinking they understand the system better than a prisoner.

‘In this particular case, they did not.

‘On June 12, 2019, Mr Westcott met Mr Truter who at that stage certainly told Mr Westcott that he and MAPPA had no power to adopt those additional licence conditions.

‘That meeting could have done little to assuage Mr Westcott’s concerns, as Mr Truter took the view, which he was legally entitled to take, that he would only comply with conditions that were lawfully imposed.

‘When a probation officer hears a convicted child sex offender say he is not going to comply with conditions intended to protect children, that is going to be a matter of considerable concern.

‘Mr Truter has dual British and South African citizenship and so his plan on release had in fact been to ask for permission under that standard licence condition to go and live in South Africa and serve his licence period there.

‘However, that was not possible for Mr Truter due to his ‘additional licence conditions’ which it is common ground were not lawfully imposed.

‘Someone can be ‘imprisoned’ if obliged to remain somewhere they do not wish to be, irrespective of the practical means by which that is enforced.

‘Mr Truter has proved there was false imprisonment, so that claim succeeds and, in my judgment, an award of damages for £2,500 is appropriate.’

Truter, from Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, groomed three boys aged 12, 14 and 15 by lavishing them with gifts.

He invited them to his home where he sexually abused them between 2009 and 2013.

Truter was jailed for eight years at St Albans Crown Court in October 2014.

A skydiver who was knocked unconscious during a jump survived a terrifying 10,000ft plunge after falling without an open parachute — and says she “cannot wait” to get back in the air.

Holly Wiffen, 35, an experienced parachutist, said she knows how fortunate she is to be alive after another jumper accidentally kicked her in the head, leaving her unconscious mid-air.

As she hurtled toward the ground at speed, a conifer tree broke her fall, helping save her life before she was found and rushed to hospital in Nottingham.

Ms Wiffen, who has completed 425 jumps, is now recovering at home after suffering a badly broken left leg and a fractured spine in the August 7 accident.

GoPro footage captured the dramatic moment she dropped into freefall before surviving what she has described as an extraordinarily lucky escape.

She can be seen with around eight other passengers leaping from a plane into a clear blue sky using a technique known as ‘tracking’, which involves building up speed through falling horizontally.

The group of jumpers disperse as they descend, but one of them collides with Ms Wiffen just as she is moving into position, sending a piece of debris flying and leaving her unconscious.

The parachutist immediately plummets to earth from her spot at around 12,000ft following the crash which took place at 100mph, The Sun reports.

Ms Wiffen then falls to earth at 150mph with other skydivers appearing to notice her accident and attempt to follow her down and grab hold of her.

One tries and fails to grasp her with his hand and is forced to unfurl his own parachute just 3,000ft above ground. 

The unconscious jumper then disappears out of shot, at which point some of her colleagues thought she was going to die, she said. 

At some point – probably at around 1,000ft according to Ms Wiffen – she pulled her ripcord, even though she has no memory of her freefall.

This released an emergency chute, but just seconds later a secondary chute was deployed because it registered that she was travelling too fast and at too low an altitude. 

The combination of the two chutes served to create a ‘downplane’ effect, increasing her speed to around 40 to 50mph at the crucial moment.

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But in a miraculous turn of events, Ms Wiffen crashes into a conifer tree positioned in the middle of vast swathes of open fields.

This greatly softened her landing, likely saving her life when a collision with open road or a power line might have proved fatal.

The dental therapist ended up landing hundreds of feet away from the field at which she was supposed to arrive.

She might have suffered a near-death experience, but Ms Wiffen is already planning her next skydive.

‘If I hadn’t hit the tree I would have hit the ground and would have been soup. Most people don’t survive skydiving accidents like that.

‘I want to get back to skydiving as soon as I can.

‘Although, knowing what happened and that I could have died also makes me a little nervous.’ 

Ms Wiffen added that she does not remember her fall, but that she felt like she was dreaming about skydiving during that time.

When she finally came to, the parachutist was lying on the ground with her leg pointing in the wrong direction. 

Her reserve chute was stuck in the conifer tree and she had to wait for her fellow jumpers to scramble through thickets of brambles to find her. 

She was placed on a stretcher and rushed to hospital, where she was operated on six days later.

Ms Wiffen is currently recovering at her parents’ farm after being discharged from hospital.

The enthusiastic skydiver also rides a motorbike and does rock climbing so it is little surprise the thrill-seeker wants to get back to jumping out of planes. 

Skydiving expert Allan Hewitt said the accident would be investigated, adding that collisions such as this were rare. 

A registered sex offender who was allowed to enrol in an honours program at the University of Melbourne is now facing a fresh series of serious criminal allegations, among them rape and procuring sex by deception.

Anthony Brooks, 33, appeared before Melbourne Magistrates’ Court on Monday, where he applied to have his bail conditions changed so he could spend two months living in New South Wales while receiving mental health treatment.

The bid came as the court was told Brooks had been hit with further charges, following a Daily Mail report in June that revealed he had been accused of offences linked to child abuse material allegedly involving “very young children”.

Police allege Brooks had child abuse material in his possession at a Docklands property on multiple occasions in July and December 2024.

He is further accused of sending child abuse material to a known associate in May 2024, as well as allegedly transmitting similar material several more times in July.

Brooks also allegedly stalked a person at Docklands between February 2023 and June 2024.

Police allege Brooks created multiple fictitious personas to contact and harass the victim, coercing them into an unwanted sexual relationship. This conduct allegedly included threats of self-harm.

Brooks is accused of intending to cause physical or mental harm and of arousing fear for the victim’s safety or that of others.

He is further charged with using a carriage service to menace, and allegedly breached his reporting conditions as a registered offender by opening a Gmail account in 2023 without notifying police.

Brooks was charged in November last year and placed on police bail, which he has allegedly already breached.

The court heard Brooks allegedly contacted the complainant on September 20, 2024, with threatening messages, including one that read: ‘By now you can probably realise I can become anyone and be on anything, I’ve been Andrew, Anthony, Bradley.’

An amended hand-up brief was submitted in August, containing a significant number of new charges against Brooks, including rape and procuring sex by fraud, relating to the same complainant.

At Monday’s hearing, Brooks applied to vary his bail so he could move to Basin View in the NSW Jervis Bay area for two months between December and January, citing a desire to reconnect with friends and family and seek mental health care.

The court also heard Brooks has a non-conviction prior for sexual offending against a 15-year-old boy in Sydney, but did not become a registered sex offender until he moved to Melbourne in 2022.

A detective from the Proactive Targeting Team, Leading Senior Constable Luke Ilott, told the court that police were concerned they would not be able to monitor or enforce bail conditions if Brooks moved to NSW.

The detective also expressed concerns that Brooks could commit further offences, noting he had already been charged with three counts of allegedly breaching bail by accessing the internet, including social media and the gay dating app Grindr.

The alleged breaches occurred on June 12, just one week before Brooks appeared in court on June 19.

Brooks is also accused of using multiple devices to communicate with the complainant in the current matter.

Police further alleged Brooks may have committed similar offences against other complainants online.

‘The accused has outstanding matters with other informants investigating him,’ the detective told the court.

‘He was interviewed recently, in August, by Melbourne SOCIT [Sexual Offending and Child Abuse Investigation Team] regarding two different complainants and sets of circumstances.’

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The court was told the ongoing investigations into Brooks are of a similar nature, ‘involving online sexual acts by fraud… one of which [involves] using personas again,’ the detective said.

The court heard police questioned Brooks after a complainant came forward with allegations against him.

Police said there are currently four ongoing investigations into Brooks’ alleged activities.

‘There’s an outstanding unit, or informant, investigating what this complainant brought forward, which is of a similar nature to online offending,’ the detective said.

‘[Brooks was questioned] but not charged; that aspect of the investigation, child abuse material and contact with that person, is outstanding.’

Police said they seized multiple phones from Brooks on August 20, which are now being examined for child abuse material.

The court was told Brooks is an ‘educated man’ and an admitted lawyer, currently studying history at the University of Melbourne as an honours student.

Brooks was forced to move from student accommodation into an Elwood rental in Melbourne’s south after the Daily Mail revealed the sex crime allegations.

During his academic career, Brooks gained entry to and completed an arts degree at the University of Melbourne.

He was named to the Dean’s Honours List in 2023, 2024, and 2025.

Brooks also received the university’s 2026 Neville Bonner Memorial Scholarship and, as of March this year, was identified as a ‘current history honours student’.

On April 29 this year, about a month after the University of Melbourne scholarship was reported, Brooks was again charged with transmitting child abuse material.

It is understood Brooks arrived in Melbourne around the time his interstate conditional release order expired in February 2023.

That same month, Brooks, who was living in Docklands, was suspected of beginning his alleged stalking campaign and commenced his studies at the University of Melbourne.

In June, the Daily Mail submitted a series of questions to the university, including whether it was aware Brooks was a registered offender. The university declined to answer.

We also asked what protocols the university has to monitor sex offenders and to ensure the safety and wellbeing of staff and students; again, the university did not respond.

Another question left unanswered was whether Brooks would have been permitted to enrol in the bachelor’s program had the university known he was a sex offender.

‘We have legally binding confidentiality and privacy obligations that prevent us from confirming any details relating to past or present University staff, students, prospective students or other individuals,’ a University of Melbourne spokesperson said in a statement at the time.

The university also provided a general response, describing the safety and wellbeing of its students and staff as ‘paramount’.

‘Any experience of assault, sexual assault and sexual harassment within our university community is unacceptable,’ the spokesperson said.

‘We remain steadfast in upholding our commitments to prevent and respond to sexual misconduct and gender-based violence within our University community, and have robust systems and supports in place for our students and staff.

‘Any student with concerns about their safety at university should contact our Safer Community Program.’