HIGH-RISK SEX OFFENDER WHO CHANGED HIS NAME TARGETED BAR WORKER
A HIGH-RISK sex criminal with a long history of targeting lone females returned to offending after moving to Carlisle and changing his name.The case of 42-year-old Grant Huddart, who was formerly known as Grant Percival and whose previous victims have included children, has prompted comments from national campaigners who want tighter controls on sex offenders.
A News & Star investigation has confirmed that dozens of convicted sex offenders who are being supervised by Cumbria Constabulary have changed their name.
The move effectively allows paedophiles such as Huddart and other sex offenders to start their lives afresh, often with no obvious way for the people they encounter or live amongst to learn about their past offending.
At Carlisle Crown Court, prosecutor Georgia Kennedy-Curnow outlined Huddart’s latest offence, committed in February.
He came to the city after serving a jail term for sexually assaulting a young Kendal woman in June 2024 when he won the victim's sympathy by claiming to be suicidal.
In the Carlisle case, the victim - a young female city centre bar worker - was not sexually assaulted but Huddart's behaviour towards her bore disturbingly similarities to his Kendal offence.
Miss Kennedy-Curnow described how the woman was working on the evening of February 23, collecting glasses, when she noticed the defendant staring at her.
He opened a conversation by saying: "Excuse me – can I ask you a question?" Told that he could, he asked: “Would you care if I killed myself?” Concerned for his welfare, the woman offered to have a cup of tea with Huddart.
He asked more questions, enquiring if she hated him, and if she thought that he was good looking.
Huddart went on to say that he wanted to kill himself.
His conversation then changed as he told the woman she was beautiful.
He followed this with: “I’d really like to say what I’d like to do you.” She told him not to bother.
Because of her concern, the woman alerted the police but before walking away, Huddart asked her for a cuddle.
The court heard that Huddart’s previous 25 offences featured several breaches of his sexual harm prevention orders and multiple sex offences, including: - 2003: indecently assaulting a 14-year-old girl who was walking home from school.
- 2004: sexually assaulting another 14-year-old girl in an alleyway.
- 2011: offering another 14-year-old money for sex.
- 2011: becoming fixated with a female bus driver, staying on the vehicle for five hours and recording her.
- 2012: sending a person a malicious or menacing message.
- 2014: Approaching a 13-year-old, saying he was suicidal and asking for hugs.
- 2018: sexually grooming a female online, believing she was aged 15.
- 2024: sexually assaulting a 20-year-old in Kendal.
In the Kendal sexual assault, Huddart brazenly lied to the victim to win her sympathy, claiming he was a father, grieving after the death of his 18-month-old daughter.
Clare Thomas, defending, said the defendant had – despite the contrary view of a probation officer – accepted responsibility for his offending.
“He was consuming alcohol for the first time in a number of months,” she said.
The barrister said Huddart made good progress while living in supported accommodation in Lancashire but when that ended, he was given a place in Carlisle’s John Street hostel for homeless men.
The local authority will not, however, offer him accommodation within the next 12 months because he is deemed to be too "high risk." The defendant's sexual harm prevention order, banning him from approaching or "encroaching on" the personal space of ‘lone’ females, had left him feeling there was no hope, and that his fate is one of loneliness, said Miss Thomas.
She told the judge that Huddart was verbally abused after his case last year was reported in Cumbria's local press.
He now felt that a sentence that banned him from Carlisle would allow him to make a fresh start elsewhere.
Judge Michael Fanning noted the defendant’s complaint that press coverage and court orders added to his isolation and made it harder for him to forge "proper relationships with women".
“But your past interactions with women demonstrate that you seem to be incapable of forming a relationship in an appropriate way at all," the judge told Huddart.
“So far as the reporting is concerned, the public, and in particular females who are vulnerable and who are alone, are entitled to know that you pose a risk to them.” “It is right that the press reports on his predilections and location, said the judge.
Anonymity would give Huddart greater opportunity to offend, added Judge Fanning as he jailed the defendant for 18 months.
A new sexual harm prevention order forbids the defendant from approaching any female stranger, unless inadvertently or to obtain goods or services, or during therapeutic treatment.
This will be in place indefinitely.
A News & Star Freedom of Information request has revealed that Cumbria Police is currently supervising 48 sex offenders who, in the last five years, changed their names, a process that can cost as little as £15.
The practice has accelerated in recent years, with 15 Cumbria based sex offenders changing their names in 2023, and 12 the following year.
So far this year, four local sex offenders had adopted new names.
In December 2024, Cumbria Police personnel were supervising 932 sex offenders in the community.
By July of this year, the figure had risen to 939.
The figures compare to slightly lower totals from 2020 and 2021, when just under 800 sex offenders were being monitored locally.
Most face monitoring and supervision as part of their sentence after a criminal conviction.
Others are being supervised because of civil proceedings, such as the imposition of a sexual risk order, designed to prevent offending.
Emily Konstantas, who heads The Safeguarding Alliance, welcomed Government plans to tighten the law on sex offenders changing their names but said that more needs to be done to address the risk this creates.
She said: "The ability for registered sex offenders to change their names without proper monitoring remains an open loophole, one that has been exploited, is being exploited, and will continue to be until it is fully closed.
"It enables offenders to evade vital checks and places vulnerable children and adults at significant risk.
"While we welcome the Government’s recognition of this issue through the Crime and Policing Bill, the proposed reforms do not go far enough.
"Legislative change must be robust, enforceable, and capable of addressing both future and past exploitation of this loophole.
"When someone sexually abuses a child or an adult, the victim’s rights must take precedence.
Survivors cannot erase their trauma with a simple name change, and neither should an offender be able to erase their identity or their past to avoid accountability.
"We need a joined-up, mandatory system that ensures any name change by a registered offender is immediately flagged and shared across all relevant agencies.
Anything less continues to fail the very people this system is meant to protect.
We will continue to campaign for Della’s Law [an abuse survivor] as long as this loophole remains a risk." Sarah Champion, the Labour MP for Rotherham in South Yorkshire, has long campaigned for a tightening of the law to prevent offenders like Huddart hiding their past.
"Across the country sex offenders are changing their names to avoid detection or to frustrate the justice system," she said.
"This legal loophole makes us all more vulnerable and needs to be closed.
"Successive Ministers have recognised the threat of sex offenders changing their name, but the solutions they offer require the abuser to do the right thing - which seldom happens." The Government's Crime and Policing Bill addresses this by requiring all registered sex offenders to notify the police of an intended name change at least a week before it happens.
The law change will mean that the police can refuse permission for a name change on official documents if this is necessary for public protection.
For more information about the planned reform of sex offender name changes - and why the prohibition will not apply to all such offenders - check out the Government's summary of the Crime and Policing Bill.
There are currently more than 70,000 registered sex offenders in the community in England and Wales, a 52% increase from 2014.
Della's Law is a proposed and at present in-part enacted law that aims to prevent registered sex offenders from changing their names to evade detection by authorities.
