Locations
Bron y Graig, Bodedern, LL65
Description
A married teacher and former police officer has been jailed for two years for "grooming" a person he believed to be a 12-year-old girl online.
Barry Lander, 49, of Bron y Graig, Bodedern, appeared at Caernarfon crown court charged with attempting to incite a child under the age of 13 years to engage in sexual activity on Friday, March 5.
The maths teacher at Ysgol Ardudwy in Harlech in Gwynedd thought he was speaking to a child called Ashley in an online chatroom for two weeks, but in fact it was an undercover police officer.
The court heard the pair had several conversations in the chatroom and on Skype between October 16, 2019, and October 30, 2019, and by October 22 Lander began telling 'Ashley' that he wanted to "kiss her neck" and "open her legs".
He suggested that they meet up in Cardiff where he was due to travel for work the following month, but the police officer stopped replying.
Even after he received no response from the officer, Lander continued to send messages of a sexual nature, the court heard.
Lander initially denied the charges, stating that he knew all along that he wasn't talking to a child but a "vigilante" who he wanted to string along.
Despite denying the charges, Lander was convicted on a 10-2 majority verdict by a Caernarfon crown court jury last month.
Sentencing Lander to two years in prison, Judge David Hale said: "You were a teacher, you have been a policeman and one day when you were perhaps at a low ebb you entered this chatroom.
"There is no evidence that you had done this before.
"The conversation quickly moved over to Skype and you had a number of conversations with Ashley.
"You are fixated by your contention that you realised straight away that this was a vigilante.
"There is an ease in which you use phrases and steer the conversation to sexual matters. They are your phrases throughout.
"The officer never steered you towards them - you did.
"I do not believe for one minute that you thought you were talking to a vigilante.
"You didn't think about anything except this conversation with a young girl, culminating with the possibility of going to meet in Cardiff where you knew you were likely to have to go as part of your employment in November.
"I am not assuming that you had resolved to meet but you continued to try and get in touch with Ashley once the police officer had cut contact.
"Why would you do this except for a sexual reason? There is no other reason.
"You have forthrightly denied it throughout. You cannot face up to the obvious truth.
"People who make these suggestions to children, or people they assume to be children, are inciting sexual contact with children. It is clearly a serious matter.
"It's incomprehensible why you as a teacher, a man of your past, happily married, should do it. You have lost all of that."
Landers will serve half of his sentence in prison and will then be released on licence.
He was also given a Sexual Harm Prevention Order for 10 years, was ordered to sign the sex offenders register for 10 years and has been banned from working with children.