Latest Offenders Hertfordshire

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A teacher and football coach has been jailed for 16 years after being convicted of sexual assault offences against a child.

Micheal Smee was found guilty of raping a child aged under 13 years old, following a trial at Cambridge Crown Court. He pleaded guilty to five further counts of sexual activity with a child, with the offences occurring between January 2013 and April last year.

On top of the jail term, Smee will spend a further eight years on extended licence.

The 39-year-old former PE teacher and football coach from Stevenage must serve at least 10 years behind bars before being considered for parole.

Upon sentencing, the judge told Smee: I am in no doubt whatsoever that you pose a significant risk to members of the public, particularly young boys.

You are every parents nightmare.

Smee will remain on the Sex Offenders Register for life, and a restraining order has been put in place banning him from contacting his victim or family members.

Detective Constable Zoe Maddison, who was the investigating officer on the case, said: Smee abused his position of trust as a teacher and football coach to groom his young victim over a significant period of time.

The victims family trusted Smee and they have been left devastated by what has happened.

I hope that, following Smees conviction and his substantial prison sentence, his victim is now, with support, able to rebuild his life and move forward.

I would also like to take this opportunity to commend the victim for his bravery throughout the criminal investigation and court proceedings.

Frances Bush from the Crown Prosecution Service said: "Smee took advantage of a position of trust and his victim's love of sport to commit these terrible acts.

"It is thanks to the victim's bravery in coming forward and the hard work of specialist detectives and specialist CPS prosecutors that he will be unable to continue his offending."

Detective Inspector Lynda Coates, from Hertfordshire Constabularys Joint Child Protection Investigation Team, said: It takes tremendous courage for victims of sexual offences to report them to police and I would like to reassure the public that Hertfordshire Constabulary has specialist officers to support victims of these types of crimes.

Whilst the Constabulary does have a dedicated team of trained specialist staff who investigate these types of offences, I understand that victims may still feel more comfortable contacting another agency first.

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Three men who lured a 17-year-old into prostitution have been jailed for a combined total of 13 years.

Alistair Spagnoletti, Curtis Walker and Callum Ward were arrested in November 2014 after police attended a house in Rickmansworth and found a missing girl.

Describing it as the worst case of child exploitation ever seen, officers found the girl in a vulnerable state and said the house was littered with sexual paraphernalia including used condoms.

Harrow Crown Court this week heard the investigation uncovered evidence showing the men had been subjecting the victim to significant child sexual exploitation in various locations in Hertfordshire and London.

In March 2016, whilst on bail in relation to this case, Spagnoletti was stopped in a vehicle in Watford with a 15-year-old.

He was issued with a child abduction warning notice that stated if he had anything further to do with this teenager he could be arrested for child abduction.

On two occasions in the weeks following this notice being issued the girl was seen leaving Spagnolettis home address and he was arrested for child abduction.

Alistair Spagnoletti, who is 21 years old and from Williton Road in Luton, was today given six years and eight months in prison for controlling the child sexual exploitation of the first victim and abducting the second.

Curtis Walker, who is 23 years old and from Lord Street, Watford, was sentenced to four and a half years in prison for controlling the child sexual exploitation of the first victim.

Callum Ward, who is 19 years old and from The Thrums, Watford, was sentenced to two years in prison for controlling the child sexual exploitation of the first victim.

Detective Sergeant Iain MacPherson from HALO said: This is one of the most damaging cases of child sexual exploitation we have encountered in Hertfordshire.

It has also been an extremely complex case. These men had groomed their 17-year-old victim into having sex with men for money which they took, she believed that by providing her with food, drink, drugs, they were looking after her and they were people she could trust.

"The power they wielded over her was so great that she felt she could not support police action against them.

"Sadly may never recover from what they have done to her.

Spagnoletti was also charged with the offence of abduction and I am in no doubt that he would have gone on to sexually exploit this victim had officers not intervened.

These acts are deplorable and I am in no doubt these men pose a risk to other children. It is right they are now serving time in prison.

He added: One of the elements of Child Sexual Exploitation sees the person being groomed to the point where they genuinely believe they are not a victim and therefore can become extremely difficult to bring offenders to justice.

"However, I hope this sends a clear message to those involved in these disgusting crimes that in Hertfordshire we will do everything in our power to protect young people and to bring offenders to justice. We do not need a complaint from a victim in order to prosecute.

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A man who raped a 12-year-old girl from Hampshire after posing online as a teenage girl, has been jailed for 14 years and four months.

Gary Cooper, 47, pleaded guilty at Winchester Crown Court to the sexual grooming and rape of the girl.

Cooper, of Windsor Drive, Hertford, fabricated a profile in a social network site in which he purported to be a 15-year-old girl called Chantelle.

Passing sentence, the judge called Cooper "highly manipulative".

The court heard how Cooper had used the online site to meet his victim in July 2011 and then took her to Hertfordshire, via Essex, where he raped her.

After being reported missing, the girl was found by Hertfordshire Police the following morning.

A police investigation uncovered a series of offences against the 12-year-old and another girl to which Cooper pleaded guilty.

Det Insp Dave Storey, of Hampshire Constabulary, said: "This incident highlights the ease with which online paedophiles can use social networking sites to communicate with children and parents should be mindful of who their children are communicating with and any arrangements that are made following contact."

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A senior Hertfordshire politician, who held a role overseeing children's services, has been jailed after being found in possession of more than 400,000 indecent images of children.

Stephen Holmes, 61, was sentenced to 10 months in custody at St Albans Crown Court today after admitting 23 counts of possessing indecent images and videos including thousands at level five, the most serious abuse.

The massive cache of images was accumulated over a period of 12 years by Holmes, who resigned as deputy portfolio holder for childrens services at Hertfordshire county council and as a Dacorum borough councillor following his arrest.

Harry Bentley, for Holmes, told the court his client had never sought to abuse his position or gain access to children.

He said: "This is a man with a problem, not a persistent sex offender.

"A somewhat pathetic individual locking himself in a room on his own."

The images were discovered on computer equipment in his Woodhall Farm home in May by police investigating online activity.

The politician, who was also a Dacorum Borough Councillor in Hemel Hempstead and the former mayor of the borough.

Holmes, of Dickens Court, Hemel Hempstead was also handed an indefinite sex offenders prevention order limiting his internet access by Judge John Plumstead.

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A nappy-wearing paedophile from Kings Langley has today been jailed indefinitely.

Former Oxford University scientist Andrew Lintern, 55, of Five Acres, filmed himself sexually abusing a 17-month old baby and collected 20,000 images of children described as ‘disturbing in the extreme’.

At London Southwark Crown Court Judge Geoffrey Rivlin QC described some of the images recovered from his library as being of the 'most disgusting, indeed horrific kind, representing a truly awful catalogue of offending against young children'.

Handing the pervert an indeterminate sentence for public protection, Judge Rivlin said: “Taken all in all, the charges you have pleaded guilty to amount to such a great catalogue of offences involving child abuse that it is difficult to grasp the scale of your offending.

“It is just as difficult to grasp what has promoted a man like yourself to become so steeped in activities that involve the sexual exploitation of children and the literally immeasurable harm that was done to them.”

He added: “The 26 counts relate to pornographic images which you either made, or downloaded or distributed and in total amounted to a staggering number of indecent images of children, both still photographs and movies, many of them portraying the most appalling abuse of small children.'

The research chemist, who had an 'obsession with the systematic sexual abuse of children', bought himself a pack of nappies which he admitted to wearing, Southwark Crown Court heard.

Lintern, who has been married for 24 years, was found with nearly 20,000 images of children aged between five and ten stashed around his Kings Langley home. Three of the images showed Lintern abusing a toddler back in 2002.

Of the sex assault on the baby, Judge Rivlin said: “Following your arrest you confessed these crimes to the police, but apart from being evidence of what you were capable of doing to a young child they also amounted to a gross breach of trust.”

Referring to a probation report assessing Lintern's dangerousness, Judge Rivlin read: “I consider he is entrenched in his sexual offending and the risk he poses will not diminish easily.”

Ravi Dogra, defending, had accepted Lintern needed treatment.

He said: 'This man who once had a bright career an undergraduate of Oxford has lost everything as a result of his habits.'

The pedophile will serve a minimum of three and a half years before a parole board consider his suitability for release.

Judge Rivlin also ordered Lintern to enrol on a sex offender treatment programme while in jail.

Lintern was also ordered to sign on the sex offenders' register indefinitely.

DS Jason Tunn, of the Metropolitan Paedophile Unit said: “The court has recognised, along with the probation service and a defence psychologist that Andrew Lintern continues to pose a serious and real risk to children.

“The sentence imposed reflects that view that he is a dangerous sexual predator.”