Latest Offenders Colchester

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A man has been jailed for three years following a collaborative investigation by Essex Police and officers in the East Midlands.

Neil Wilkin had denied attempting to engage in sexual communications with a child and attempting to arrange or facilitate the commission of a child sex offence.

However following a three-day trial at Ipswich Crown Court in October, the jury found him guilty on both counts.

They heard that in 2022 the 55-year-old used an online chat room to discuss and plan committing child sexual offences with another user on the platform who he thought was the mother of a teenage girl.

What he didn’t know was that he was interacting with police officers from the East Midlands Special Operations Unit.

"pack of lies"

In November 2022 Essex Police officers arrested Wilkin at his home in Rose Allen Avenue, Colchester.

He was sitting with numerous electronic devices around him and these were all seized. During a forensic examination of his devices, which showed signs of evidence being deleted, conversation threads between Wilkin and the officer were recovered.

Wilkin didn’t answer questions during interview, but in a prepared statement he denied the allegations, claiming it was all “fantasy”.

On Friday 28 November Judge Kelly sentenced him to three years in prison and said Wilkin told a ‘pack of lies’ during his trial.

He was also placed on the sex offenders’ register indefinitely and is subject to 10-year Sexual Harm Prevention Order (SHPO).

Essex Police investigating officer Detective Sergeant Nicola Hadfield said:

Wilkin is a sexual predator who preyed on the vulnerability of someone who he believed was under-age.

His deviant behaviour was stopped by collaborative working by police here in Essex and in the Midlands.

We will be managing him as a sexual offender upon his release, and he will be closely monitored.

Safeguarding children and keeping them safe is our priority and we will relentlessly pursue offenders and bring them before the courts.

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A sex offender who served a year in prison for possessing a quarter-million indecent images has breached his sexual harm prevention order by deleting his WhatsApp history.

Jonathon Turkentine, 68, was jailed in 2022 but denied any sexual interest in children. His barrister told Ipswich Crown Court he viewed the images and movies for "artistic reasons" while researching the "perfect female form."

As part of his sentence, Turkentine received a ten-year sexual harm prevention order prohibiting him from deleting internet or message history.

Court papers show he breached it by deleting WhatsApp photos and enabling an auto-delete setting for messages.

Turkentine, of Mersea Road, Colchester, appeared at Chelmsford Magistrates’ Court last week and admitted one count of breaching the order.

Magistrates fined him £141, plus £110 in costs to the Crown Prosecution Service and a £56 victim surcharge, totaling £307.

He must pay by December 3.

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“The woman in this case did something incredibly brave by speaking to the police – her actions have ultimately led to this sentence.”

Officers have praised the bravery of a woman reporting she was raped as her attacker was sentenced to 14 years in prison.

Daniel Oldfield, 48, of no fixed abode, attacked his victim in her own home in April 2022.

On the night of 2 April, Oldfield had been sleeping elsewhere in the property but entered the woman’s bedroom and attacked her, injuring her hand and holding her by the neck before leaving the room.

Later the same evening he attacked the woman again, as she slept, raping and sexually assaulting her.

He was charged and remanded in custody from November 2022, and following a two-week trial, a jury at Ipswich Crown Court found Oldfield guilty of rape and sexual assault by penetration by majority verdict 11-1 in August 2024.

He has now been jailed for 14 years and given an indefinite Sexual Harm Prevention Order following a hearing at the same court on 30 October 2025.

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THREE prison officers had to tackle a defendant who started punching a pane of glass when he was told he was being jailed.

Lewis Buckley, 27, appeared before Colchester Magistrates’ Court after he admitted one charge each of theft and failing to comply with notification requirements for sex offenders.

The court heard Buckley failed to report to a police station after he was released from HMP Chelmsford earlier this year having served a 12-week prison term for exposure.

Stuart Cowen, prosecuting, said: “This is his fifth such offence which would aggravate the matter further."

Buckley, of no fixed abode, Colchester, also stole £150 of clothes from H&M in May and was arrested after he was reported by a member of the public.

The hearing had to be adjourned briefly for a cleaner to sanitise the dock after Buckley was seen spitting into an air vent.

Referring to a pre-sentence report prepared by the probation service, Hamza Adesanu said in mitigation: “There is the usual stuff – mental health concerns, school being patchy, use of drugs and use of alcohol, and homelessness.

“He was released from custody and was overwhelmed by freedom and didn’t report to the police station.

“He has been homeless for a number of years – he has done well to be convicted as lightly as he has.

“He has been on the streets from place to place – Clacton, Colchester – and still manages to report, in the main, to a police station.”

He added: “His convictions have created a vicious cycle where work is difficult to obtain, housing is difficult to obtain – it is difficult to describe his life as anything but chaotic.”

When the bench retired to consider their sentence, Buckley launched a verbal tirade at the press bench.

He said: “You should feel ashamed sitting there. You’re a cretin – your family would be ashamed of you.”

Magistrates jailed Buckley for eight months for failing to comply with notification requirements and one month consecutive for theft from a shop.

Buckley constantly shouted at the magistrates' bench while the chair Robert Cook explained how they had reached their sentence.

After refusing to go to the cells, three dock officers wrestled Buckley to the ground before the legal adviser cleared the court.

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In June 2023, one of our officers promised a victim of sexual abuse that he would secure justice for her before she died.

Now, we have been able to fulfil that promise, when a man was jailed after being found guilty of non-recent sexual offences.

James Gibbs appeared at Chelmsford Crown Court on Thursday 22 May and was sentenced to four years in prison, after previously being found guilty of gross indecency offences.

An investigation by Essex Police’s Quest Team was launched in 2021, after a woman bravely reported that she had been sexually abused by Gibbs more than 40 years ago.

After facilitating early-stage interviews with the victim, Gibbs was arrested in February 2021 and later charged with two counts of gross indecency.

Gibbs pleaded not guilty to both offences.

The victim sadly passed away before the trial began but before she did, Detective Sergeant Ed Massey had seen her in a hospice and pledged to do his best to get justice for her.

DS Massey worked with the Crown Prosecution Service to push for the trial to go ahead, using a pre-recorded interview with the victim as evidence.

Following a trial, Gibbs, 73, of Meadow Way, Jaywick, was convicted in July 2024 of two counts of indecency.

He appeared at Chelmsford Crown Court on Thursday 22 May and was sentenced to four years in prison, with two thirds to be served before he can be considered for release.

He was also given a Sexual Harm Prevention Order restricting his access to children for the next ten years and will be a registered sex offender for the rest of his life.

During sentencing, the judge paid tribute to the victim and praised her bravery in coming forward to report the matters.

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A woman has bravely spoken out after she and another victim were assaulted by a child sex offender from East Bergholt, who has now been jailed for 12 years.

The two women spoke to Essex Police in 2022 to disclose the historic offences committed by 36-year-old Lloyd Prior.

Prior, of Broom Knoll in East Bergholt, was accused of multiple sexual offences against the two women, who were children at the time of the offences, between 2005 and 2013.

He pleaded not guilty and stood trial at Chelmsford Crown Court on 20 January 2025, and a jury found him guilty of 10 charges – three counts of engaging in sexual activity in the presence of a child, three counts of causing or inciting a child under 13 to engage in sexual activity, two counts of sexual assault of a child under 13, and two counts of assault of a child under 13 by penetration.

He was sentenced to 12 years in prison at the same court on Wednesday 23 April.

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A CONVICTED sex offender failed to comply with a court order because he didn’t want to miss a shift as a pizza delivery driver.

Dominic Middleton, 28, was previously jailed at Carlisle Crown Court in 2016 after he admitted one charge of sexual activity with a child.

Colchester Magistrates’ Court heard on Tuesday that Middleton, who has since moved to Essex, was subjected to notification requirements for life as part of that sentence.

It means he is required to inform police within three days if he changes any personal details such as his name or address, or opens a new bank account.

Entering the dock with a large Puma holdall, Middleton admitted one charge of failing to comply with notification requirements for sex offenders.

Lucy Osborn, mitigating, said Middleton, of Windmill Court, Colchester, was unable to get to the police station in time to register new personal details because he had to catch an early bus to get to work.

She said: “He accepted he was a day late and explained he was working as a motorcycle delivery driver for Domino's, working very long shifts from 11am to 11pm.

“He would take the S1 bus, a university route – but because it was the summer holidays, he could not get a bus until 9.20am which would get him to work in time for 11am.

“He asked his boss if he could start later but was refused this – his employer stated if he was late attending, it would be referred to HR and he would be dropped from a number of shifts.

“He felt he had no option but to go to work.”

Ms Osborn said: “He felt he was in an impossible position between not wanting to damage his employment prospects and not being entirely forthcoming about the reasons why he wanted time off work.”

District Judge Christopher Williams said breaches of a sexual harm prevention order or notification requirement are serious because “it means someone is at risk of sexual harm”.

Judge Williams imposed a six-week prison sentence, suspended for one year, and ordered Middleton to pay £299 in costs.

Description

Officers who monitor the risk posed by sex offenders secured a prison sentence for a man who repeatedly breached a court order and attempted to engage a child in sexually charged conversations.

In October last year, Alastair Dixon, 35, was found to have sent sexualised messages and images to an online decoy posing as a 14-year-old boy.

He committed this serious offence despite being the subject of a 10-year Sexual Harm Prevention Order (SHPO), imposed at Ipswich Crown Court in August 2023.

These orders place limits and monitoring conditions on offenders’ use of electronic devices and day-to-day activities.

Our Management of Sexual Offenders and Violent Offenders team (MOSOVO) are focused on ensuring these stringent court orders are adhered to and any breaches swiftly detected.

These officers work alongside the probation service to prevent and deter further offending.

The team was able to link Dixon to a number of offences.

In another breach, we received a report he was in possession of an unauthorised smart phone.

Subsequent investigation found he had installed deletion software on computers at his home.

It was further found Dixon attempted to pervert the cause of justice by creating an email address in an innocent man’s name, before sharing a link containing indecent images of children.

He was arrested, charged and admitted a range of offences including:

• Attempting to incite a child to engage in sexual activity.
• Attempting to engage in sexual communications with a child.
• Seven breaches of a Sexual Harm Prevention Order.
• Failing to comply with notification requirements.
• Perverting the course of justice.

Dixon, of Pilborough Way, Colchester, admitted each charge due to the evidence gathered against him and appeared for sentence at Ipswich Crown Court on Wednesday 22 January.

Judge Emma Peters said he committed “sophisticated, serious offences” and sentenced him to five years’ imprisonment.

Dixon was made the subject of a lifelong SHPO and will be subject to notification requirements for the rest of his life.

In 2024, MOSOVO made 125 arrests, secured 286 charges and solved nearly 370 investigations.

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A PAEDOPHILE who sent explicit images of himself to what he thought was a 14-year-old girl has said he committed the offence because he was lonely.

Jack Goodacre, 28, had admitted possessing indecent images of children in March but proceeded to send sexual messages to an account only months later while he was on bail.

Goodacre had contacted a decoy account in July when he asked if he could chat to the young girl called Melissa, Ipswich Crown Court heard on Friday.

A WhatsApp conversation followed which involved Goodacre sending messages calling her “pretty” and “cute”, before asking her if he would be her first boyfriend.

Abby Robinson, prosecuting, said: “He requested a photo of the decoy’s legs and sent two images of himself.”

One image was of Goodacre naked.

The conversation continued and the defendant told the decoy he would book a hotel room for the two of them.

He then sent her a video of him performing a sex act and an image of a sex toy.

A record of the conversation was kept by a vigilante group which was behind the decoy account, and Goodacre was reported to police who arrested him.

The court heard Goodacre, of Victoria Chase, Colchester, was already on bail when he was messaging the decoy account after admitting three charges of possessing indecent images of children – some of whom were as young as six – in March.

In July he then admitted one charge each of attempting to engage a child in sexual activity, attempting to cause a child to watch sexual activity, and possession of category B images before being remanded in custody.

Mark Brown, mitigating, said: “He’s never been in any substantial trouble before. He was working in a full-time job and had his own flat.

“He puts his offending down to loneliness.

“He didn’t deal with going to custody very well and he broke down in the magistrates’ court.

“He has had the shock of his life going into custody.”

Sentencing Goodacre, Judge David Pugh said: “I don’t consider it appropriate to suspend this sentence, so the sentence is 16 months of immediate imprisonment.”

Goodacre was also ordered to sign the sex offenders’ register and will be subject to notification requirements for ten years.

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A SUPERMARKET worker downloaded hundreds of sick images including videos of child sex abuse, a court has heard.

James Baines appeared in court for sentencing on Thursday after admitting five counts of possessing indecent images.

Police raided Baines’s address in King Stephen Road last year and seized a Samsung mobile phone which was found to have 255 category A images, 138 category B images, and 63 category C images.

Further searches found a Google Drive folder on Baines’s laptop contained three category A videos and two category C images.

Category A images are classified as being the most serious as they depict penetration of a child whilst they are in pain or distress.

Baines first appeared at the magistrates' court where he admitted three charges of making an indecent photograph of a child and two charges of possessing an indecent photograph of a child.

The case was then transferred to the crown court so a greater sentenced could be passed.

Lucy Sweetland, prosecuting, told Ipswich Crown Court that Baines said to officers he was “not shocked” when they had turned up at his address to execute a search warrant.

Baines had said the images were initially sent to him by other internet users in an online chat group but he “willingly accepted the images and continued to access the chatroom”, Miss Sweetland said.

The court heard how most of the images were of children around the age of six, with one image depicting a child as young as four months.

Miss Sweetland continued: “Another image shows a child distressed and crying during the abuse.”

Frank O’Toole, mitigating, said Baines, 24, had no previous convictions and was working full-time in a supermarket.

He added: “He is not trying to blame anyone else and he is not saying he was bamboozled or taken advantage of because of his age – he doesn’t know why he did it.

“The difficulty he has had from early adulthood was that he lost his hair and became very, very self-conscious because of that – he had decided to go to university but abandoned that idea because he felt his peer group wouldn’t relate to him.

“He self-imposed a personality that removed him from the normal exchanges he would have had with that group - to an extent, he was isolated."

Judge David Pugh sentenced Baines to an eight-month prison term suspended for two years, ordered him to complete 30 days of rehab activity requirements, and imposed a £340 payment for costs.

Baines has also been placed on the sex offenders' register for ten years.

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A man has been jailed for seven years after breaching a sexual harm prevention order (SHPO) and striking up a "friendship" with a 13-year-old boy.

Luke Tucker, 23, was convicted of a sexual offence in October 2022 and given an SHPO in February 2023, which required him to notify police if he is going to stay at any address where someone under 18 lives or stays and tell them if he is using any aliases.

He also had his access to the internet significantly limited, as well as his ability to store images and videos. 

Just after he was given his SHPO in February, police have discovered that Tucker struck up a "friendship" with a 13-year-old boy, having told him that he was 16.

Tucker gave the boy gifts, stayed at his home address, and had him back to stay at his own address in Eight Acre Lane in Colchester.

While officers were investigating him, they discovered that Tucker had also been messaging a 15-year-old boy and trying to encourage sexual activity.

They searched his house on March 25 this year and discovered several memory cards, USB sticks and hard drives, all in breach of his SHPO.

He was charged with a range of offences and convicted of causing or inciting a child to engage in sexual activity, breaching a sexual harm prevention order, and failing to comply with the requirements of the sex offenders register.

He was jailed for a total of seven years at Chelmsford Crown Court on Wednesday.

PC Graeme Braby, who led the investigation, said: "Luke Tucker poses a very real danger to young people.

"The fact he defied the significant constraints on his contact with children, access to the internet, and access to storage devices highlights the lengths he was prepared to go to.

"Many people around the county will not think, or want to think, about the possibility of a registered sex offender living in their community but I hope the fact there is a professional, specially trained, and dedicated set of officers and staff managing the risk they pose will be reassuring."

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A "dangerous" sex offender who abused a string of young victims over a period of 30 years, including a teenage boy from the Humber region, has been jailed for 24 years.

Phillip Johnson, 65, was convicted of 13 counts of sexual assault against children, including attempted buggery, and eight counts of making indecent images of children following a trial in July.

Humberside Police aided Essex Police and Kent Police in securing the charges against "dangerous offender" Johnson after a thorough investigation into his historic sexual offending.

During the course of the investigation, Johnson's devices were seized and around 2,000 indecent images of children were found, including a number of the most serious Category A images of serious child sexual abuse.

He started his campaign of abuse in the late 1980s when he sexually assaulted two young boys, aged between six and eight when the offences took place, at an address in Kent. The sick abuse continued for a period of two years.

The victims stated that the abuse stopped in the late 1980s when Johnson left their lives for a period of time, but resumed when they reached 15/16 years of age.

In 2008, Johnson moved to the Humber region, where he befriended and groomed a teenage boy before later sexually assaulting him.

Struggling with what had happened, the victim did not tell anyone about the abuse for a decade, before reporting the matter to the police.

Johnson then moved to the Colchester area of Essex where he groomed and sexually assaulted two males, one of whom kept the abuse secret for a year until a disclosure from the second boy encouraged him to come forward and speak to police.

Following a trial at Chelmsford Crown Court, Johnson was convicted of all counts on Thursday, July 27. On Wednesday, August 30, he was sentenced to 24 years' imprisonment.

The judge deemed him to be a dangerous offender and ordered him to serve a minimum of 15 years before he can be considered for parole.

He will be subject to an indefinite Sexual Harm Prevention Order and will remain on the sex offenders’ register for life.

Speaking after sentencing, investigating officer Detective Constable Lucy Percival, from Colchester CID, said: “I want to praise the courage shown by the victims in this case, who experienced a traumatic childhood due to Phillip Johnson’s actions towards them.

“The victims, now men, showed huge bravery and determination to see this process through to seek a degree of justice for what happened to them.

“Most importantly, each of their sentiments separately was to prevent this from happening to anyone else.

“There is no doubt, Johnson is a dangerous individual who showed a concerted effort to identify vulnerable children, groom them and then ultimately to sexually abuse them.

“His actions were horrific, but I am pleased he has now been held accountable for those actions which in turn will hopefully allow the victims to move forward.”

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A convicted paedophile has admitted 21 further offences of sexually abusing young boys while overseas.

Christopher Behn, 68, from Colchester, is already serving a nine-year prison term for abusing 11 children in Myanmar in 2016.

The new charges related to the abuse of boys, aged six to 11, in Vietnam.

Behn, who police described as a "committed and prolific transnational child sex offender", is due to be sentenced next month.

The retired engineer appeared in Chelmsford Crown Court by video link from HMP Albany on the Isle of Wight.

Investigators from the National Crime Agency (NCA), Europol and Dutch authorities identified Behn as a member of a Europe-wide network who travelled together to abuse children across the globe.

He was arrested at Gatwick Airport in February 2020, after investigators identified him as appearing in images with another member of the network - a Dutch national who was convicted in the Netherlands.

Behn was detained by officers before he could board a flight to Vietnam.

Photographs taken by Behn, showing him abusing children, were recovered from encrypted electronic devices.

His travel history showed he had visited Vietnam 18 times since 2006, along with trips to Thailand, Philippines, Laos, Cambodia, India, and Myanmar, the NCA said.

He and the Dutch national had also written diaries that described in graphic detail the abuse committed by the pair on many of these trips.

In June this year, Behn was further charged with 23 counts of sexually assaulting a child and causing a child to engage in sexual activity between 2008 and 2018.

He denied two of the charges, but will not face trial on those counts.

Phil Eccles, NCA operations manager, said Behn was "a committed and prolific transnational child sex offender, who dedicated years of his life to this criminal network".

"Behn and his like-minded friends conducted their offending in remote parts of the world and conspired together via encrypted chats in the hope of hiding their horrific offending from law enforcement," he said.

The agency said it had identified a further five men based in the UK believed to have links to the network and investigations were ongoing in a number of countries across Europe.

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A RAPE victim has spoken out after her attacker was convicted of rape by a crown court judge.

The woman, whose identity is protected, explained how she awoke suddenly to find Shaun Western raping her.

The victim had been on a night out with friends in Colchester in September 2018 and returned to her flat at the end of the night, but when she woke up to find she was being raped by Western, 24, who fled the flat when he had been discovered.

In a police interview, Western claimed the sex was consensual but the jury at Chelmsford Crown Court did not believe him and on Tuesday he was sentenced to six years and six months imprisonment.

In a statement read to the court, the victim said the attack had impacted hugely on “every aspect” of her life.

She said: “Since this happened, I started to suffer from night terrors.

“I never used to have issues sleeping, now when I have a night terror I start to drift off to sleep, I will jolt awake with the memory of him on top of me.

“It would make me feel breathless and panicky.”

The victim also said she has since been diagnosed with depression, anxiety and obsessive compulsive disorder, with her ability to work also majorly affected.

Officer in the case Detective Sergeant Danielle Markoutsis praised the victim for her courage.

He said: “[The victim’s strength character throughout this process has been an inspiration.

“While delays in bringing this case to trial were outside of our control, the verdict and sentence serve as a stark reminder of our clear determination to bring sex offenders to justice.

“The early advice process we have in place [with the Crown Prosecution Service] seeks to involve a lawyer in the very early stages of an investigation to agree a joint action plan with the officer in charge.

“This is helping to improve the timeliness of our investigations, leading to more solved outcomes and has now been recognised by the college of policing, which has included this as evidence of good practice for other forces to follow.”

Western will be subject to an indefinite restraining order and will remain on the sex offender's register for life.

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A 28-year-old registered sex offender from Colchester who breached the terms of a suspended prison sentence order a few weeks after it was made has been jailed for 26 months.

Michael Vinson was given a two year jail term suspended for two years on June 16 last year after he had conversations over a period of a month with an undercover police officer who said he had two nieces aged seven and ten.

During their communication on the Kik messaging and chat app Vinson had said what he was interested in doing sexually and had asked for pictures and for the children’s underwear, Ipswich Crown Court was told.

However, the court heard there was no evidence Vinson had got on a train or bought a train ticket to meet the fictitious girls and he had also made an excuse to the undercover officer about why he couldn’t go to meet them.

Vinson, of Axial Close, Colchester, pleaded guilty at Ipswich Crown Court last year to attempting to arrange or facilitate the commission of a child sex offence in 2021.

He also admitted possessing two extreme pornographic still images and four videos depicting a person performing sex acts with an animal.

He was given a two-year prison sentence suspended for two years and ordered to 200 hours unpaid work.

He was also given a 30-day rehabilitation activity requirement and ordered to take part in a sex offenders’ treatment programme.

He was also made the subject of a sexual harm prevention order for ten years and ordered to sign the sex offenders’ register for the same period.

On Thursday (April 20) Vinson admitted breaching the suspended sentence order by breaching the sexual harm prevention order and the sex offenders’ registration requirements by staying with a couple and their five-year-old daughter in Yorkshire between July 20-23 last year without telling them he was a registered sex offender and failing to notify the police of a change in his address after he’d been there for more than 12 hours.

Richard Kelly for Vinson said his client had become a social pariah since details of his court appearance last year were published last year and his mental health had deteriorated.

He said the impact of a prison sentence on Vinson would be significant.