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A DETECTIVE who brought a despicable child rapist to justice has praised the bravery of two victims for giving evidence at his trial.

DC James Fowler, of Essex Polices Child Abuse Investigation Team, said 52-year-old Patrick Wakefield acted in a completely abhorrent way towards two girls.

Wakefield, of Twyford Avenue, Great Wakering, was jailed for 13 years at Basildon Crown Court after being found guilty at trial of a string of child sex offences, including two counts of rape.

The court heard how the predator left his victims badly scarred.

Judge Ian Graham said: You used your interest of photography to get alone time with these girls.

You bought them presents and gave them money to peruse this course of conduct.

The remorse you speak of would have been more open if you had admitted these crimes and saved these girls going through a trial.

Its clear they were left badly scarred by the experiences.

Mitigating, Christopher Martin told the court Wakefield had lived in poverty as a child which has severely impacted his life.

Mr Fowler said: Patrick Wakefield has been rightly jailed for his despicable actions.

"He acted in a completely abhorrent way towards his two victims, including forcing them to give evidence at his trial by denying any wrongdoing.

Patrick Wakefield has been made a registered sex offender and a Sexual Harm Prevention Order preventing him from going near children in the future will go some way to protecting other children."

He added: I want to praise both victims for their courage and bravery in coming forward and reporting their abuse to us, and in having the strength to give evidence at court, playing a part in stopping this man from offending against another child.

They have stood strong throughout the judicial process with the love and support of their families. I would hope that this sentence will play some part in giving their families some form of closure.

They have expressed their sincere thanks and gratitude to us for our hard work and dedication throughout the investigation, and for the support shown to their children.

I would also like to urge other victims of abuse to come forward, to report any concerns and to know that they too will be supported by our specialist teams.

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A teenager convicted of raping one girl and committing other sexual offences on another is starting a six-year custodial sentence.

Aiden Gallon was found guilty of six offences relating to one or other of the two victims, following a two-day trial at Peterlee Youth Court, in September.

He denied the offences, one count of rape, two of sexual assault and three of engaging in sexual activity with a girl, all committed at a time he was 16.

But, having been found guilty by the youth panel, the case was sent to be sentenced at Durham Crown Court, as the defendant, who was only 17 when court proceedings began, had by then turned 18 and become an adult in the eyes of the law.

He appeared at the crown court in October when Judge Jo Kidd adjourned the sentencing hearing to allow time for preparation of a psychological report on Gallon, specifically to assess his perceived “dangerousness”.

Jonathan Walker, prosecuting, said impact statements made by the two defendants referred to one having “been obliged” to move address since Gallon’s offending, while the other described having resorted to taking tablets after the offending.

The court was told the defendant has a previous offence of arson being reckless as to whether life was endangered on his record, for which he was made subject of a youth referral order.

David Carmichael, for Gallon, said his client had “issues” with anger management during his school days.

Recorder Kidd said given the conviction she would make him subject to indefinite restraining orders relating to both girls.

It forbids him from approaching or contacting either girl, directly or indirectly, effectively for life.

He was also made subject to interim notification as a sex offender.

On his return to the court to be sentenced this week, Judge Kidd imposed the six-year young offenders' institution sentence.

She said the restraining orders would remain in place, while the notification requirements as a sex offender would also continue, “indefinitely”.

A £34 statutory court surcharge was also imposed.

Following the hearing, Judge Kidd confirmed that a previous “gagging” restriction order relating to Gallon, of Lancaster Hill, Peterlee, would be lifted, allowing him to be identified in reports of the case.

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A former carer who arranged to meet young girls so he could rape them has been jailed for more than five years.

Daniel Chisnall, 48, from Huntingdon, was arrested by National Crime Agency officers at a pub in the town in December last year, before he had checked in to a nearby hotel where he planned to carry out the abuse.

Before his arrest, he had discussed his sexual interest in children with other paedophiles on the Kik online chat platform, WhatsApp and via email.

Using a pseudonym, he messaged a user who said he had access to two girls, aged seven and 11.

He spoke intimately to his online contact about the children and how he wanted to rape them when they met.

Officers searched his address following his arrest and his devices were seized.

Forensic examination showed his phone contained 12 indecent images of children (IIOC) in categories A-C. A being the most severe.

A further five IIOC in categories A and C had been printed out as poster-sized documents.

Chisnall, who drove a minibus in his job as a carer for vulnerable adults, was charged with one count of arranging or facilitating the commission of sexual assault of a child, one count of making IIOC (categories A-C), and one count of possessing IIOC.

He pleaded guilty at Cambridge Crown Court on January 16 and was sentenced to five years and two months imprisonment at Huntingdon Crown Court today (February 17).

He has been placed on the sex offenders register for life and is also subject to an indefinite sexual harm prevention order.

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A police officer says a jail sentence given to a man from Lowestoft for making and distributing indecent images of children demonstrates that the police will prosecute re-offenders.

57 year old Charles Moore of Oulton Road North in Lowestoft was jailed for a total of 27 months at Ipswich Crown court after he pleaded guilty to three charges of making indecent image of children, possession of prohibited images and a breach of a sexual harm prevention order.

Moore, a registered sex offender, having been convicted in 2018 of making and distributing indecent images of children, as well as possession of prohibited images and possession of extreme pornography. He received a custodial sentence and, upon release, was being managed by the Public Protection Unit.

After his release from prison, police paid a routine visit to his home address in November 2021. Part of the visit saw officers scan his devices for any content which may be related to child abuse material, and it returned positive results on his desktop computer, indicating child abuse material was present.  As a result, his electronic devices were seized so further analysis could take place.

This further analysis established 5,260 category A images, 583 unique Category A videos, 6,786 Category B images, 693 Category B videos and 36,980 Category C images and 236 Category C videos on his devices, as well as being in possession of 20 prohibited images of a child.

Moore was subsequently charged in June 2022 in relation to these offences. At court on on Wednesday 8 February he was also given a Sexual Harm Prevention Order (SHPO) and placed on the Sex Offenders Register for 10 years and an order enforced for the destruction of his electronic devices.

PC Nicola Flack of the force’s Internet Child Abuse Investigation Team said: “This conviction and sentence demonstrates after an initial sentence for similar offences is served, we will not be afraid to prosecute re-offending and persistent online criminality. Internet crimes such as these are far from victimless, and every image depicts the very real abuse a young child has suffered. The prohibitions imposed through this new Sexual Harm Prevention Order allow the police to monitor his online behaviour for the next 10 years, reducing the risk to the public.”

Category A - Images involving penetrative sexual activity, sexual activity with an animal or sadism.

Category B - Images involving non-penetrative sexual activity.

Category C - Indecent images not falling within categories A or B

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Ridgway, 21, shared 30,000 images and videos with fellow paedophiles.

A man has been jailed for six years and three months for sexually assaulting a four-year-old girl and sharing videos of the abuse online. Keenan Ridgway, 21, became the subject of a National Crime Agency investigation in August 2021, after he sent the material to another offender who was arrested in Miami.

After matching the images and videos to those that were uploaded to a file-sharing platform in 2018, NCA investigators identified Ridgway as the user behind that account. He was arrested by NCA officers at his home in Skegness and his phone was seized. This was analysed and was confirmed to be a match for the phone that was used to create the abuse material, and from which the platform had been accessed several times in 2018.

The phone had recorded Ridgway's journey on the night a number of the videos were created. This is consistent with him going to the location where the abuse took place. Officers also recovered a number of items of Ridgway’s clothing, glimpses of which could be seen in the abuse videos.

The file-sharing app was downloaded on his phone and showed that in total, Ridgway had uploaded 450gb of material, which amounted to almost 30,000 indecent images of children (IIOC) in categories A-C. 42 of these were of the young girl.

A further 355 IIOC were also recovered from his phone.

Email records showed that prior to committing the abuse, Ridgway told another online user that he had sent all the videos he had, but promised he would be “making new soon so you’ll be the first person to be sent them”.

Ridgway was charged with 16 offences, including three counts of sexual assault of a child, three counts each of taking and possessing IIOC, six counts of distributing IIOC, and possession of prohibited imagery.

He pleaded guilty to all charges and was sentenced at Lincoln Crown Court to six years and three months in prison. He has been placed on the sex offenders register for life and is also subject to a 10-year sexual harm prevention order.

Martin Ludlow from the National Crime Agency said: “His actions have caused trauma to those involved, the impact of which may be felt long after he has served his sentence.

“The NCA has the niche capabilities to identify high-risk offenders like Ridgway who pose a sexual threat to children and we will continue to work tirelessly to ensure they are identified and brought to justice.”

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A pyromaniac who was previously jailed for life for setting fire to a curry house said "I feel sick" after he was outed as a paedophile.

Alan Cashman held daily lewd chats on Facebook with what he believed was a 14-year-old boy and exposed himself during a video call. But, unbeknown to him, he was being ensnared in a paedophile hunter sting.

Liverpool Crown Court heard today, Thursday, that the 39-year-old first contacted the decoy - which was being operated by the Saving Our Children Online group - on October 10 last year. Cashman, of no fixed address, sent the supposed youngster a friend request then began conversing with him on Facebook Messenger on a "daily basis" over the course of the next 12 days.

David Watson, prosecuting, described how the pervert sent a series of explicit images and performed a sex act during a video chat - encouraging him to do the same. A hunter then contacted him on another account, this time under the guise of an adult, and made arrangements to meet up for sex.

But he was confronted by group members at the rendezvous point on Greenheys Road in Toxteth on October 22 2022. When police attended the scene and arrested him shortly after 7.45pm, Cashman replied: "I feel sick."

His four previous convictions for four offences include two for arson, one of which saw him handed a life sentence in 2010 when aged 26. It came after he set a fire that ripped through the Spice City Indian restaurant, on Stanley Street in Liverpool city centre, and the flats above it in the early hours of August 9 2009.

Cashman then waited around to watch the building burn before, hours later, trying to pass himself off to the ECHO as a hero who had tried to save four residents trapped inside by the flames and smoke. But his lies were soon exposed and a judge described him as a "pyromaniac", having set rubbish in the rear doorway alight.

Residents described having woken up "choking on thick smoke", with one believing he may have to jump from his fourth floor apartment in order to escape the blaze. Others fled to the rooftop and clambered away onto other buildings.

Flames destroyed interior walls and the roof of the grade two-listed structure, causing an estimated £1.7million of damage. Cashman, then of Alfonso Road in Anfield, was given a minimum term of four years on this occasion.

He was locked up for the same offence in 2004 after picking up a 64-year-old man in Paco's Bar, also on Stanley Street, returning to his home in Huyton to continue drinking then setting fire to the property. The defendant was recalled on licence to prison following his latest crimes.

Ben Berkson, defending, told the court: "He has admitted to a sexual interest in children, which is often difficult for offenders to admit and is the only route to rehabilitation. He is intent on dealing with his sexual attraction to children.

"He is shocked and stunned that he is now a sex offender. He does demonstrate remorse for what he has done.

"He is exceptionally sorry and describes it as a big mistake. He is completely unaware and in the dark about when his release date is to be."

Cashman admitted attempting to incite a child to engage in sexual activity, attempting to cause a child to watch sexual activity and attempting sexual communications with a child. Appearing via video link to HMP Altcourse, he was jailed for 20 months as well as being handed a 10-year sexual harm prevention order and told to sign the sex offenders' register for the same period.

Sentencing, Recorder Jeremy Lasker said: "It is to your credit, and unusual in the experience of these courts, that you are a defendant who is prepared to accept that you have a sexual interest in young boys. I do accept a degree of remorse on your part."

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A church elder has been placed on the Sex Offenders’ Register after being found guilty of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old girl on a train.

Creepy Colin Hope was also found guilty of sexually assaulting three women in a supermarket.

Following a trial at Paisley Sheriff Court, the 81-year-old grandfather was convicted of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old girl on a rail journey – by putting his hand up her skirt, between Johnstone and Glasgow Central in December 2016.

Hope, of Polson Drive in Johnstone, was also found guilty of sexually assaulting two Renfrewshire supermarket workers and a supermarket customer between June and December 2021.

Yesterday, Sheriff Ian Anderson placed the twisted pensioner on the Sex Offender’s Register for 12 months and made him subject to supervision of the social work department.

CCTV footage from within a Renfrewshire supermarket was shown during the trial which showed the father-of-two pushing a trolley with both hands on the handle.

The footage showed that – on multiple occasions – as Hope approached a woman in the aisles, he dropped a hand from the trolley and sexually assaulted her as he walked past her before putting both hands back on the trolley.

The trial also heard how a young woman was sexually assaulted on a train by an “old man” when she was heading to Glasgow to do her Christmas shopping.

The girl was just 15 at the time when Hope repeatedly touched her leg and put his hand up her skirt.

Giving evidence during the trial, she said she felt the incident was a “severe attack” which left her in “complete hysteria”.

She explained in evidence how she was on a “busy” train herself, from Ardrossan South Beach, North Ayrshire to Glasgow Central, on December 17, 2016, when Hope got on the train at Johnstone station.

She told the court: “There was a stop at Johnstone where a man got on the train and stood to my left and I remember starting to feel slightly uncomfortable.

“I noticed he was getting closer and I tried to reassure myself that the train was busy.

“But his hand was on my leg, my left leg on my upper thigh.

“I was wearing a skirt and his hand was going up my skirt.”

Prosecutor Jason Stark asked how long Hope’s hand was on the teenager’s thigh, and she replied: “A while. It was brushing.

“The whole movement was around 10 to 15 minutes, it was constant, it was a severe attack really.

“As soon as I got off the train I just broke down as soon as there was room for me to do so.

“I was crying, I was in complete hysteria. It was a complete anxiety attack. I headed out of the station.”

Further evidence was heard by a woman who told how Hope sexually assaulted her in a Renfrewshire supermarket on July 24, 2021, causing her to be
physically sick.

The woman explained how she was looking for plastic or paper cups when Hope approached her in the aisle and went on to sexually touch her.

She was so concerned about the attack she followed the creepy pensioner around the store before returning to her car and calling her husband in tears.

She told the court she had to “physically vomit” when she returned home that evening due to the horrific ordeal.

And a supermarket employee explained she was sexually assaulted on December 17, 2021, by the retired procurement engineer.

In evidence, she told how Hope’s hand “brushed across her” and how he touched the “top of my groin area.”

During the trial, Hope denied the claims – telling the court he had an eye condition which affected his sight.

He claims the condition means he can see people but not their “finer details”.

In his own evidence, he told how all incidents were accidental touching as he would often put his hands out “for balance” and to ensure he “didn’t bump into anyone or anything”.

When asked if he repeatedly touched the supermarket workers, he replied, “not to my
knowledge”.

Defence agent, Linzi Galbraith yesterday explained Hope’s position “is the same as it was during the trial.”

Ms Galbraith told how Hope is “residing elsewhere” just now and explained how he is in the “process of being registered as partially sighted.”

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A registered sex offender who ‘stole a huge chunk’ of his victim’s life has been sentenced at Luton Crown Court to more than six years in prison.

Malcom Graham, 75, of Skegness Road, Stevenage, took advantage of his friendship with a woman, sexually assaulting her in her own home while she slept in 2018. The victim disclosed the offence to Bedfordshire Police in 2019, and an investigation was launched.

Graham was already on the Sex Offender’s Register after a sexual assault conviction in the 1980s. He pleaded guilty to sexual assault and was sentenced at Luton Crown Court on Thursday February 9.

He was sentenced to six years and seven months in prison, with an extended three years and six months on license. In an impact statement from the victim shared in court, she said: "The flashbacks I had about the night it happened were unbearable.

"I would regularly have night terrors which would result in me screaming out in my sleep... That man ruined and stole a huge chunk of our lives. Although we can never forget what that monster put us through, we are working on a better life without him in it."

Detective Sergeant Amy Hawkes from Bedfordshire Police said: "This was a predatory attack by a man who posed as a friend to prey on a woman in her own home. During the investigation, Graham denied the incident was non-consensual stating, ‘she did not say no’.

"However, consent means agreeing to what's happening by choice and having the freedom and ability to make or change that choice. During the incident, some people may feel pressured, scared and they may even freeze, which makes them unable to make a free choice, and that is still a crime.

"I want to thank the victim for finding the courage to come forward and for remaining supportive of the investigation over several years. I would also like to extend my thanks to her husband for the unwavering support he has shown her.

"This case demonstrates convictions are possible for sexual assaults, no matter who the offender is, when they took place or when they were reported." Reports of sexual assault, even if non-recent, can be made to the police by calling 101 or online. Always call 999 in an emergency.

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A man has been jailed for producing hundreds of sick photographs of children. Andrew Kelsall, 31, of Boston Road, Sleaford, was sentenced to four years and eight months in prison at Lincoln Crown Court on Thursday, February 16.

Kelsall made and distributed over 700 child sex abuse material, some of which are described as "extreme pornographic images." He also planned to meet with who he believed was a child under 10-years-old and her mother to commit sexual acts.

It later transpired that Kelsall had unknowingly been talking to a man in Scotland. Kelsall was found to be in possession of 70 Category A images and videos, 15 Category B and 34 Category C images.

He was also found to be in possession of 679 extreme images and one prohibited pornographic image. He was jailed for the following offences:

• Arrange / facilitate the commission of a child sex offence.
• Make indecent photograph of a child – Category A.
• Make indecent photograph of a child – Category B.
• Make indecent photograph of a child – Category C.
• Possess a prohibited image of a child.
• Possess extreme pornographic image/images portraying an act of intercourse /oral sex with a dead / alive.
• Distribute an indecent photograph / pseudo-photograph of a child.

Detective constable Nicola Paradowski from Lincolnshire Police's Paedophile Online Team, said: "After receiving a referral from Police Scotland regarding Andrew Kelsall and the shocking nature of his activities, we immediately launched an investigation to get a dangerous offender off our streets. This case is a great example of cross-border policing and a message to people out there that we will be relentless in our pursuit of those suspected of this type of offence.

"We take all reports of this nature incredibly seriously and Lincolnshire Police is committed to keeping children safe from harm." A spokesperson for Lincolnshire Police said: "Kelsall will be added to the Sex Offenders Register and will be subject to a Sexual Harm Prevention Order (SHPO).

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A 61-year-old Angus man must pay thousands to compensate women he molested on a farm near Dundee when they were girls.

Derek Strachan targeted the two girls, then aged just seven and eight, over a three-month period in 1984.

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Architect David Baines-Davies has been sentenced after taping a secret camera to a sink in his workplace toilets. The 50-year-old married father-of-two admitted to a charge of voyeurism following the incident at Hewitt & Carr in Cheadle.

Baines-Davies's boss discovered the camera after it fell to the floor while he washing his hands, and he reported the matter to the police. Video footage on the camera showed Baines-Davies fixing it under the sink, but nobody else was filmed.

Baines-Davies, of Chesterwood Road, Burslem, was subsequently sacked by Hewitt & Carr. Magistrates at North Staffordshire Justice Centre have now handed him a community sentence following his guilty plea.

Prosecutor Zaine Riaz told the court that employees at the firm had expressed 'concern and disgust' after the camera had been discovered, in October 2020.

Mark Holder, mitigating, said that at the time of the incident, his client had been 'going through a breakdown' due to stress.

Mr Holder said: "He has struggled to find a reason why the offence was committed. It was about as unsophisticated as it gets. The only images on the camera were of the defendant at home and the defendant taping it to the sink. It wasn't pointing in the right direction, and it fell off straight away."

Mr Holder said Baines-Davies's family had suffered after his guilty plea was publicised in January, and he had been dismissed from his new job. Since then Baines-Davies has found alternative employment.

The court heard that the offence was aggravated by the fact that it was a breach of trust. Baines-Davies had no previous convictions.

Magistrates told the defendant that voyeurism was a serious crime. They handed him an 18-month community order with a 30-day rehabilitation activity requirement, and ordered him to complete 100 hours of unpaid work.

He will also have to sign the sex offender register, and pay £185 in costs and a £114 surcharge. The court also ordered the destruction of the camera.

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A paedophile was found guilty of faking an inability to speak while appearing in court.

Convicted sex offender Jason McDonagh, 36, appeared before Oxford Crown Court on Tuesday after beaching the terms of his release from prison.

The jury found McDonagh, of no fixed address, guilty of mute of malice rather than by visitation of God under a centuries-old law.

McDonagh made few audible responses during the two-hearing.

He had also refused to speak to officers who were sent to check on him after he was released from jail last year having served a 10-year sentence for molesting two sister, aged eight and five.

McDonagh was supposed to notify police about where he was living.

Sarah Magro, a police officer visited McDonagh between July and August last year.

He had come to police attention in the spring when he was sleeping rough in an alleyway between Bury Knowle Park and the Waitrose supermarket in Headington, Oxford.

Ms Magro said McDonagh, who it was said spoke with an Irish accent, would not give his name and told officers they could refer to him as a******e.

He generally spoke in monosyllables, the court heard.

McDonagh was subsequently taken to the Phoenix psychiatric ward at Littlemore hospital, where staff were able to confirm his identity.

Officers later checked the police national computer system and confirmed McDonagh was a registered sex offender wanted by the Metropolitan Police for allegedly breaching the terms of his release, the Oxford Mail reported.

Jailing him for two-and-a-half years at Oxford Crown Court on Wednesday, judge Nigel Daly told McDonagh: You disappeared off the radar, sleeping rough and making it extremely difficult for the authorities to track you.

"And, when they caught up with you, you made every effort to avoid identification.

McDonagh made no audible response when judge Daly asked whether he wished to question the witnesses.

Instead, he generally shook his head and pursed his lips.

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A north-east babysitter has been placed on the sex offenders register after showing pornography to children as young as four.

Kirsty Sutherland also used controversial website Omegle to make a sexually explicit video call with an unknown male while in the presence of two other children she was supposed to be looking after.

Record details

They saw him pleasuring himself at his front window.

A pervert deliberately exposed himself to two teenage girls as they walked to school. Derby Crown Court heard how the pupils walked past the Derbyshire home of George Torry to see him stood at his front window pleasuring himself sexually.

One of the shocked teens then called her mother who contacted the police and the 66-year-old was arrested. The defendant appeared via video-link from HMP Nottingham for his sentencing hearing this week which was told how he has previous convictions and that, at the time of this offence, he was the subject to a suspended sentence order, imposed just five months earlier, for breaching a sexual harm prevention order.

Jailing him for 10 months, Judge Shaun Smith KC said: "Mr Torry, you were given a chance back in June and to a certain extent you took it. You did most of the unpaid work, did some of the rehabilitation sessions and I appreciate now that things were going on in your life which may have given rise to the way your behaved.

"It was highly likely someone was going to see what you were doing. I don't know if it was a cry for help or not but this was done in front of children on their way to school on a public highway."

Kevin Jones, prosecuting, said Torry was initially handed a sexual harm prevention order back in 2006 as part of his punishment for an offence or offences which were not revealed in court. He said in June of last year, the defendant was handed a 10-month sentence, suspended for two years, for breaching it.

The prosecutor said at around 8.20am on November 10, two pupils aged 14 and 16 were walking to school and when they walked past Torry's address in Dimple Road, Matlock, they saw him. Mr Jones said: "He was standing in the window and they could clearly see the area between his thighs and chest.

"He was (pleasuring himself sexually) and they were shocked. One of the young girls telephoned her mother who made contact with the police and the matter was reported.

"Both girls were spoken to and were described as 'shocked and fearful' because they walk that way to school every day. This happened just five months after his last offence."

Torry pleaded guilty to indecent exposure and to being in breach of his suspended sentence order. Katie Hodgkinson, his barrister, said her client had lived in Cyprus for eight years where he found a wife and returned to the UK with her and their son, now aged 11, to take advantage of the free health care system here in the UK.

She said: "He went 16 years without breaching or offending and something must have happened to affect his thinking. Three close friends died during the pandemic and he was then no longer able to reside with his young son. He has had to move five times in a short period of time and this was not a specific targeting of his victims."

As well as the jail term, the order will carry on for another seven years.

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A tearful pervert cried and wailed as he was jailed after being caught in three paedophile hunter stings.

Alan Thomley engaged in lewd online chats with three decoy accounts posing as what he believed were teenage girls aged as young as 13. The 51-year-old asked one of the supposed youngsters what colour her underwear was and exposed himself on video while in the bath to the others.

Liverpool Crown Court heard yesterday, Tuesday, that he began communicating with a '13-year-old' on messaging service SayHi in July 2021 before continuing to talk with her on WhatsApp over the course of the following month. Thomley, of Longfield Road in Bootle, "asked what colour knickers she had on" and told her to "lift her top up so he could see her bra".

Christopher Hopkins, prosecuting, described how the paedophile "said she was sexy and had sexy eyes". He then began communicating with a hunter pretending to be a 14-year-old girl on the same platform, requesting naked pictures.

Thomley again instructed her to lift up her top and offered to video chat with her as he performed a sex act while bathing. In August, the defendant began attempting to groom another supposed 14-year-old - again asking for indecent images and filming himself in the bath, as well as "asking her what her bra size was".

He was eventually confronted at his workplace in Manchester by the groups on August 20 and was arrested. Under interview with police, Thomley "denied any sexual motivation".

This is the second time he has been convicted for such offences, previously being caught in such a sting back in 2015 before breaching his sexual harm prevention order during 2017. The court was told he acts a carer to his "vulnerable" partner and gained new employment after losing his job once caught out.

Thomley admitted three counts of attempting to incite a child to engage in sexual activity, two counts of attempting to incite a child to watch sexual activity and three counts of attempting sexual communications with a child. He was jailed for 45 months, handed a new lifetime SHPO and told to sign the sex offenders' register indefinitely.

Sentencing, Recorder David Knifton KC said: "You engaged in extensive online chats, apparently with three girls aged 13 and 14. In fact, unbeknown to you, the teenage girls were adult members of vigilante groups seeking to catch paedophiles by acting as decoys.

"Even then, you denied any sexual motivation - suggesting you were simply lonely and keen to engage in contact with females you suggested were adults. It appears your sexual offending resumed due to difficulties in your relationship with your partner and what you describe as a lack of sexual activity.

"Had you been in communication with real children, there would undoubtedly have been the potential for a high level of lasting sexual and emotional harm. You are assessed as posing a high risk of serious harm to children.

"Your conduct is aggravated by your previous conviction and your failure to respond to previous warnings. We will never know how far your conduct would have gone, but for the involvement of the vigilante group who confronted you."

Thomley was seen shaking in the dock as he was sentenced, then put his head in his hands as he was told he would be imprisoned and appeared to be on the verge of tears. Once taken down to the cells, the sex offender could be heard loudly crying and wailing.