A “high risk” Shropshire paedophile who befriended a mother-of-five at a playgroup despite a court order barring him from contact with children has had his three-year sentence cut by top judges.

David Peter Evans, 40, of Glebe Flats, Wellington, was handed the sentence at Shrewsbury Crown Court in October after admitting three breaches of a sexual offences prevention order as well as breaching a community order.

Appeal Court judge Mr Justice Blair said Evans represented a “very high risk of harm to children” and the breaches included attending a church drop-in centre near Telford, where he befriended a single mum and her five children, later visiting their home.

That was despite the terms of the sexual offences prevention order, imposed in August 2007, barring Evans from contact with anyone under the age of 18 “save for such contact as is inevitable in daily life”.

Mr Justice Blair, sitting in London with Mr Justice Simon, yesterday said the case had its distant origins in November 1996 when Evans was convicted of gross indecency with a boy.

Police later sought the sexual offences order due to concerns about his conduct after he was seen “tickling a child” in a Wellington swimming pool.

That led to Telford magistrates imposing the wide-ranging ban in August 2007, which Evans subsequently breached.

Mr Justice Blair said Evans had shown “no remorse” for his actions. Although he denied having any sexual interest in children, a probation report concluded that his offending was “sexually motivated”.

He had shown “flagrant disregard” for the court orders, the judge added.

Evans’s lawyers pointed out that he had only once been convicted of a sexual offence, arguing that the three-year sentence was “manifestly excessive”.

Mr Justice Blair concluded the breaches were not “minor”, but that the total three-year term was “too long”. Taking account of his guilty pleas, the Appeal Court substituted a 21-month term.