Man appeals touching biceps ban

Mar 27 2008 by Chloe Griffiths, Liverpool Daily Post

A PRISONER is appealing against an order banning him from touching men’s biceps.

Akinwale Arobieke is currently serving a 15-month jail sentence for breaching an interim sexual offences prevention order (SOPO) by feeling a young man’s biceps in a shopping centre in Preston.

The order banned Arobieke from asking young men if he could measure their muscles and requesting them to squat.

He was jailed in November, 2007, for the breach, but is due to be released on April 24. During his jail stretch, a five-day trial was held at Liverpool magistrates court where the SOPO order was made indef- inite. Akinwale, formerly of Cavendish Gardens, in Toxteth, did not attend the court hearing on February 14, but he has now decided to appeal the decision.

At a hearing at Liverpool Crown Court yesterday, it was revealed Arobieke is bidding to get the order overturned on the grounds some of the evid- ence against him was inadmissible.

A hearing is now expected to be held on June 9.

Arobieke was given the interim SOPO order weeks after being released from a six-year prison sentence imp- osed in 2003 for 15 counts of harassment and one of intimidating a witness.