Latest Offenders

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43-year-old Richard Moore from Newport has been sentenced to 16 months in prison and given a 10-year Sexual Harm Prevention Order after being caught trying to meet who he thought was a 12-year-old girl for sex.

Moore was arrested by Police at Portswood Road, Southampton on 6th January following an online sting by the group 'S.K.I.D Community'.

Decoys pretending to be a 12-year-old girl called India were able to gather evidence that Moore was attempting to meet the child for the purposes of carrying out sexual acts. He is said to have used explicit language and sent nude photographs of himself to 'India' with the aim of going to her aunties' house on the afternoon of 6th January.

Earlier this month Moore pleaded guilty to attempting to engage in sexual communication with a child and attempting to meet a child following grooming.

Richard James Moore was sentenced to 16 months in prison at Southampton Crown Court this morning (Monday). He was also handed down a 10-year Sexual Harm Prevention Order and ordered to sign the Sex Offenders Register indefinitely.

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A TADLEY man has been sentenced to 12 years in jail having admitted to multiple sexual offences against children.

Daren Jones, 48, of Silchester Road, Little London, pleaded guilty to 29 counts of sexual offences during a hearing at Winchester Crown Court last month.

The offences include sexual assaults on two boys under the age of 13 that took place in the Tadley and Reading areas between 2015 and 2017.

Jones was sentenced today at Winchester Crown Court.

The incidents were reported to the police in December 2017, and following an investigation by Hampshire Constabulary, officers tracked down Jones to a hotel in Brighton, Sussex, on Wednesday, 27 December where he was arrested.

The court was told Jones had left the United States in 2008 while on bail, having been charged with serious sexual offences against children.

Jones used the name Simon Jones to live “under the radar” until his arrest, the court heard. 

After the hearing, investigating officer detective constable Sarah Moyce-Phillips, of Hampshire Constabulary’s Child Abuse Investigation Team, said: “We hope that today’s sentence provides some form of closure to the victims and their families for what has been an extremely difficult time.

“Once the offences came to light, officers worked tirelessly to make sure Jones was arrested and could be brought to court to face justice for what he did.

“We hope that the sentence given today will give confidence to others who have suffered abuse of this nature.”

Judge Jane Miller sentenced Jones to 12 years in prison, with an extended licence period of five years. He was also made subject of a sexual harm prevention order until further order.

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A Twerton man found guilty of a dozen of historical sex offences, including the rape of an underage girl, has been jailed for more than 11 years.

David Matthews, aged 61, of Linley Close, off Poolemead Road, abused two girls on multiple occasions in the 1990s and 2000s, the court heard.

The jury found Matthews guilty of ten counts of indecently assaulting a girl during a six-day trial at Bristol Crown Court in January.

He was also found guilty of the attempted rape of a girl under the age of 16 and guilty of raping a girl aged 13, 14 or 15, by a majority verdict.

Matthews appeared again at Bristol Crown Court on Wednesday (February 21) and was sentenced to 11 years and six months in prison.

He was also put on the sex offenders register indefinitely.

The victims, who cannot be named for legal reasons, were aged 11 and 12 when the abuse first started.

Investigating officer Detective Constable Gemma Crew said: Matthews actions have resulted in lifelong consequences for his victims who, more than 20 years on, are still coming to terms with what he did.

Now that he is behind bars for a substantial length of time I hope they feel a sense of justice for the trauma he caused.

Both victims showed tremendous courage in talking to us about their experiences and I hope this conviction will also encourage other victims to report offences to us.

It doesnt matter when the assaults happened, where they took place or who did it well take every report seriously and help provide support."

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A DEFENDANT who told a Royal Court trial that he had no sexual interest in children had a conviction for having unlawful intercourse with a 14-year-old, girl it emerged yesterday. A DEFENDANT who told a Royal Court trial that he had no sexual interest in children had a conviction for having unlawful intercourse with a 14-year-old, girl it emerged yesterday. Alasdair Garven, 65, of Loxton Drive, Twerton, Bath, bowed his head and closed his eyes, as Jurats unanimously found him guilty on all 10 counts of historic child abuse. He had denied five counts of committing acts of gross indecency, as well as five of indecently assaulting girls under the age of 16 between 1970 and 1977. The offences, against four girls, took place at his former homes on the Rectory Hill and Le Picquerel estates, and at another property in the Castel. The youngsters' ages were estimated to be between four and nine at the time and all gave evidence for the prosecution. * A probation report will be prepared and he will be sentenced next month.

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A former car trader from Torquay has been jailed after being caught by vigilantes trying to meet a 'nine-year-old girl' for sex.

Richard Giles, 24, fell for an online sting by self-styled paedophile hunters, Exeter Crown Court was told.

The girl he thought he had groomed online was actually a decoy created by an adult on behalf of UK Database and did not exist.

Davis was confronted by members of the group after trying to lure the girl to his house.

He claimed he only wanted to play Monopoly with her.

Giles admitted that on December 23 last year he communicated on more than one occasion with who he believed to be a nine-year-old girl and attempted to meet her for sexual activity.

Prosecutor Gordon Richings said the defendant struck up a conversation online with the decoy who told him at the outset that she was just nine years old.

Within a day the conversations turned sexual said the prosecutor.

The defendant referred in explicit sexual terms to the girls body and sent her a photo of a BMW he said he owned.

The defendant suggested the girl meet him at his home address on December 23. He was confronted at the scene by members of the vigilante group.

The group filmed him making confessions and police arrived to arrest him, said the prosecutor.

Police said they found a pair of childs knickers at his address. Giles said they belonged to an adult ex-girlfriend. He said he was not sexually attracted to children and preferred older woman.

Mr Llewellyn Sellick, defending, said Giles had been married before to an older woman and divorced at the age of 19.

At the time of the offence he had been drinking heavily and looking after his blind father.

He had previously had a business trading in cars and had been studying in prison to get better qualifications.

Judge Geoffrey Mercer QC told him: You went to considerable lengths to engage in online conversation with a girl who you thought was nine years old. The conversation turned to a clear sexual element. You had a clear sexual interest in her, although you were told she was nine years old.

You arranged to meet her believing her to be a nine-year-old girl but you undoubtedly believed that she was. You went to meet her and your intentions in meeting her were clearly sexual. You were not concerned, as you suggested, to play Monopoly.

The judge said in some cases it was possible to suspend the sentence but not in this instance.

He was jailed for 18 months.

Giles was told to sign the Sex Offender Register and made the subject of a Sexual Harm Prevention Order for 10 years.

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THE owner of a toy company has been jailed after being caught with images of infants being "tortured".

Bournemouth Crown Court heard Ian Buckingham had more than 1,100 images of child abuse in the most serious category, more than 600 of which were videos, on computers seized from his home in Roumelia Lane, Boscombe, in December 2017.

A police forensics officer with some 17 years experience said the images were "the worst he has ever seen in his career", said prosecutor David Reid.

The court heard Buckingham, 40, "hates himself" for what he had done, having started to view the images after the death of his mother in 2016, while self-medicating with drugs.

Mr Reid said: "The sample images show very young children, one particular case cited an infant perhaps no older than 12 months."

He said "in excess of 100" of the most serious images, in category A, "depict young children little more than babies, clearly being tortured and put in pain".

In total Buckingham, who has one previous conviction from 2001 for an unrelated offence, had 1,146 still and moving images in category A, 373 in category B, 3,175 in category C and 95 'extreme pornographic' images depicting bestiality.

He admitted 19 counts of possessing indecent images or extreme pornography.

Buckingham is listed as the director of toy firm Fidget Brothers, which has its registered address at his former flat in Boscombe. The court heard he had "given that flat up" as it was "no longer suitable" and currently had no home address.

In mitigation, Kevin Hill said: "Mr Buckingham says that he hates himself for what he did. He says he wants to get well."

The court heard the defendant had been diagnosed with "mental illness" and "serious migraines" and had "suffered considerable anxiety since these offences, and continues to do so in prison".

Mr Hill said his client "wants a better life for himself" and had taken on three jobs in prison to "make the very best of the time he has".

He said Buckingham plans to study for an art degree on leaving prison.

Sentencing Buckingham to 20 months in prison, Judge Peter Crabtree OBE said his actions had helped to fuel "a vile industry" which would have "a lifelong impact on the children who are subject to abuse and the women, and it is always women, who have to perform vile acts with animals".

Buckingham was made subject to a Sexual Harm Prevention Order and required to sign the sex offenders register for 10 years.

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A HAMPSHIRE teenager has avoided prison after performing a sex act on himself in a video call with a 12-year-old girl.

Winchester Crown Court heard how Lewis Howcroft, 19, had been speaking with the victim, who cannot be named for legal reasons, over video calling service Skype and had also been searching for illegal material online before being found out by police.

Howcroft, of Northington Down, near Alresford, claimed the victim had asked to see him performing the sex act over Skype, and had initially declined, however this had not been proven.

Howcroft was caught out when the victim’s parents found messages on their daughter’s phone, and then contacted police.

He pleaded guilty to causing a child to watch an image of a person engaging in sexual activity

Prosecuting, Colin Meeke said there was evidence of “highly sexualised” chat logs with the girl.

“What is abundantly clear is he knew how young she was, there is evidence of some grooming.

“He did not seek to deny the matters.”

Mr Meeke added: “It is clear the defendant, over a period of time, made a number of disturbing internet searches.”

Mitigating, Chloe Jay told the court that Howcroft “lacked the emotional maturity of an adult”.

The court also heard a psychological report has been produced on Howcroft’s “mental conditions”.

It said he had already suffered “grave” effects including losing his job, college place and being excluded from social groups, as well as him and his family being “harassed” by paedophile hunters.

Howcroft, who was 18 at the time of the incident in November 2016, was sentenced to a three-year community order, with a 60-day rehabilitation requirement and 100 hours of unpaid work.

Judge Pawson said: “You caused a child to watch a highly sexualised act.

“Whether she did or didn’t ask is neither here nor there, she was 12.

“I have seen and heard about the various searches you made on the internet, some of that is likely to have been down to the curiosity of a teenage person, but some of that goes beyond curiosity.”

Hawcroft was also ordered to pay a victim surcharge.

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A depraved paedophile who used online blackmail to target a string of vulnerable victims, including a girl who was ordered to eat dog food, is due to be sentenced on Monday. Cambridge graduate Matthew Falder has admitted 137 offences relating to 46 complainants after being caught by an international inquiry led by the National Crime Agency. The 29-year-old was arrested in June last year after three traumatised victims, who were tricked into sending him humiliating images, attempted to end their own lives. A previous hearing at Birmingham Crown Court was told Falder coerced male and female victims into producing increasingly severe self-generated indecent images of themselves, the focus of these images being to humiliate and degrade. Opening the facts of the case against Falder, prosecutor Ruona Iguyovwe told the earlier hearing many of the images were then distributed on so-called hurtcore websites showing material depicting sexual and physical abuse. Falder, who treated victims both as sex objects and as objects of derision, posted on one forum 100 things we want to see at least once. In remarks in that post, he suggested a young girl being used as a dartboard, production of a video depicting a childs bones being slowly and deliberately broken, and the abuse of a paralysed child. It also emerged during the earlier hearing Falder initially duped victims into providing images by posing as a female artist who wanted to turn them into life drawings. The operation to catch Falder, who used specialist software to hide his online accounts, was aided by GCHQ, the United States Homeland Security department and law enforcement bodies in Israel, Slovenia, Australia and New Zealand. Falder, of Harborne Park Road, Birmingham, has been told he may face a life sentence for the offences, committed over an eight-year period. The former post-doctoral researcher in geophysics at the University of Birmingham is due to be sentenced by Judge Philip Parker QC at the citys Crown Court.

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Now released. Steven McKenna targeted his victim after she was seen struggling to stand up and attacked her in an isolated harbour area in Bridlington, East Yorkshire A man who raped and sexually assaulted a woman after following her out of a nightclub later spat at her twice when she called the police, a court heard. Steven McKenna had also licked her legs as she tried to make the emergency call in the "additional degradation" he levelled at her. When officers arrived, McKenna had gone but the woman was crying and they noticed she had frothy spittle in her hair, the Hull Daily Mail reported. McKenna, 32, of no fixed address, denied any wrongdoing and claimed any sexual activity was consensual. He showed no emotion when a Hull Crown Court jury convicted him of rape and sexual assault, but not guilty of two other sexual offences. Parts of the incident in Bridlington in the early hours last summer were caught on CCTV, and showed the woman at times struggling to stand up, and at others appearing to be "semi-conscious". McKenna followed the woman after meeting her in the Apollo nightclub and attacked her on the harbour side. She was two-and-a-half times over the legal alcohol limit for driving. Sentencing McKenna on Friday, Recorder Abdul Iqbal QC told him: "These were shameless and cruel offences against a vulnerable victim, on her own in an isolated location for your sexual gratification." He said the victim had suffered "substantial" psychological trauma, and the spitting and verbal abuse after the sexual offences amounted to "additional degradation". Following McKenna's convictions, Charlotte Baines, prosecuting, read a victim statement on the woman's behalf. She said: "Every day I wake up and I'm nervous about going out of the house. I don't go out as much at all now. I always double-check the doors are locked." The court heard the woman had been unable to sleep in her own bed for three weeks after the attack, had lost her job because she did not feel well enough to attend work and did not want to inform her employers about what had happened, while her partner and family had also been badly affected. She said she now felt scared to answer the door, and said: "I feel this assault has changed me as a person." McKenna had 60 previous offences on his record, including an indecent assault on a female under 14 when he was a youth. He was jailed for nine years and ordered to sign the sex offenders register indefinitely.

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A MAN found with more than 200,000 indecent images of children is behind bars.

Jeffrey Bouquet was originally handed a suspended sentence when officers raided his home to find the vast number of photographs.

However, just four months after this sentence the 48-year-old contacted his offender manager to say he “accidentally clicked on a link” that took him to an prohibited site.

After handing himself in, officers checked his devices again and found more indecent images of children.

Southampton Crown Court heard Bouquet was found to have one category B image and 59 category C images when he was arrested last September.

Prosecutor Lucy Conroy told the court that the images had been downloaded from website such as Tumblr. She said: “An offender manager was contacted by Bouquet who stated he clicked on a website that could be bad and that he should not have clicked on.“It was decided that he should come into the police station and bring his phone to be examined - to see if the site was prohibited.”Miss Conroy added: “In his search history there were some searches for items such as ‘teen girl’ and the images that were found.”

Originally, Bouquet was sentenced after he was found to have 200,000 indecent images of children in April.

The court heard that along with that conviction, Bouquet had also received similar cautions for offences in 2001 and 2007.

Mitigating, Guy Draper told that court that Bouquet “accidentally clicked on the link” and handed himself in to help with the operation.

He said: “Bouquet had been viewing lawful material when the link appeared on his screen and he clicked on to it.

“It took him to indecent images.”

Mr Draper added that since Bouquet was given the suspended sentence he had completed 150 hours of unpaid work and had made good progress in his appointments with probation.

Recorder Jane Rowley said Bouquet’s first sentence could be “considered lenient” and that in sending him to prison she was giving a message to other people like Bouquet who continue to offend.

Bouquet, of Albert Road South, Southampton, pleaded guilty to possessing category B and C images and was sentenced to 16 months jail.

He was made the subject of a sexual harm prevention order.

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A violent teenage rapist who "hunted" his victim in a park and hit her over the head with a paving slab on his 17th birthday has been jailed for life.

Charlie Pearce researched rape online before carrying out his attack "of animalistic savagery", in July last year, in Leicester's Victoria Park.

He denied intending to kill the woman, who is in her 20s, but admitted two counts of rape, causing grievous bodily harm with intent and stealing her handbag.

However, jurors found the "exceptionally dangerous" defendant guilty of attempted murder after he left the victim "hanging by a thread".

Pearce, of Clarendon Park, Leicester, was sentenced to life with a minimum term of 11 years at the Old Bailey in London.

He was handed seven-and-a-half years' custody for the rapes to run concurrently alongside his life sentence, with no separate penalty for the remaining charges.

Sentencing the teenager, Mr Justice Haddon-Cave said the defendant had carried out an attack of a sexual or sadistic nature and that he "intended to silence the victim forever".

"The defendant set out that evening to mark his 17th birthday to find a woman to attack and violently rape," he said.

"He can be seen on CCTV circling the park and hunting (the victim) down as she walked through the park. The attack itself was of animistic savagery. The offending was exceptionally serious."

Pearce dragged the victim into undergrowth before hitting her over the head, the court heard.

Police had been alerted after the start of his attack was witnessed by others in the park.

However, the court was told officers were unable to find anything because of a lack of a precise location being reported.

A passing cyclist spotted a pool of blood and a hair clip on the ground about an hour later and went into bushes and comforted the victim until paramedics arrived.

The follow day, police issued a CCTV image of Pearce running towards the victim holding the slab. His family recognised him and informed officers.

The victim awoke from a coma in the following weeks with no recollection of what had happened.

"I do not remember screaming when I was assaulted, though I am aware that screams were reported to the police by various people that night," she said in an emotional statement.

"My screams did not stop my attacker from causing me further harm and nor did they help me be found so I could receive medical care I needed.

"Knowing that my screams did not change anything for me that night continues to trouble me."

Phillip Bradley QC, defending, said Pearce accepted he was "entirely responsible" for the violence.

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A county cricket captain and school worker has been jailed for having sex with a teenage pupil.

Lee Francis Dixon, 31, was sentenced to two years in jail after admitting three breaches of trust and perverting the course of justice.

Dixon, who captained Chester County Cricket Club for two years before stepping down in the winter, sighed and became agitated when the sentence was announced at Chester Crown Court.

Dixon, of Greasby, Wirral, was described in court as a 'teacher' with pastoral responsibilities for troubled children, although his defence barrister said his role was not actually that of a teacher.

He was employed at a school which cannot be identified, and neither can the victim who was aged 17 at the time of the offences.

The pupil was not under his direct care when they bumped into each other at a nightclub while both were under the influence of alcohol in April 2017.

Prosecutor Kevin Jones said she recalled how they talked about their school, the canteen and she even called him 'sir'. But the conversation then became 'flirty' and they began to kiss.

After splitting up for a short time on the night, they saw each other again and moved to a secluded area, the Chester Chronicle reported.

The victim said 'proper kissing' took place and Dixon performed a sex act.

Text messages were exchanged that night about 'trying to meet up again' and outside Dixon tried to persuade her to go back to his flat but she didn't go.

Mr Jones said the next morning the teenager received Snapchat messages from Dixon including a picture of him exposing his bare chest, as well as sexual references.

About a week later they met up again after he picked her up in his car and they went back to his shared house.

The prosecutor said Dixon told her to say to his friends that they 'met on Tinder'.

At first housemates were going in and out of Dixon's room as he had won a cricket competition that day but after they disappeared sex took place.

After about two hours he took her home.

Contact ceased for a while and she deleted him on Snapchat. But communications resumed when she grew concerned about rumours going around school about their relationship.

Dixon told her not to worry as the speculation suggested she was having a relationship with an English teacher. They met up again when she rang him for a lift during a downpour.

Nothing happened but he sent her a text message after that meeting and the pair then met up at his brother's empty house, where sex took place.

Another charge admitted by Dixon was perverting the course of justice concerning his actions after the school, and later police, became involved from September 2017.

He contacted the victim telling her to downplay the incident if asked about what happened and to describe it as nothing more than 'heavy petting'.

Mr Jones said: 'During that early contact, he specifically says to her, if you're asked about it by the school or the police, that she is not to tell them they had full sexual intercourse.'

In October he rang her from a payphone asking what information had been shared with the school and police so he could be ready for any questions at a police interview the next day.

On November 15 he contacted her asking for an update and again on Sunday, December 3, just prior to his second police interview.

"Parents must be able to trust those responsible for the care of their children"

The court heard Dixon, former captain of Chester Boughton Hall Cricket club and the Cheshire county cricket team, had spent a lot of time coaching youngsters and helped establish a women's team but there was no suggestion he had abused that position.

Gareth Roberts, defending, argued in favour of rehabilitation and a suspended jail term.

He said: 'He's clearly highly thought of in the field in which he excelled but he stands before this court today thoroughly ashamed, embarrassed and remorseful for the way he acted.

'He realises that by virtue of his own catastrophic folly he's changed his own life forever and he cannot blame anyone else for that.'

The court heard Dixon was sacked from his job and has since lost his home.

Judge Patrick Thompson, who gave Dixon credit for his guilty pleas and took account of 11 positive character references, said the victim had been 'emotionally and psychologically' affected by the episode.

He told Dixon: 'Not only did you have the responsibility that comes from being a teacher at the school, your particular responsibility was being responsible for the care of the children, dealing with children who had concerns or worries and ensuring their welfare and helping them.

'It's an important responsibility. Parents must be able to trust those responsible for the care of their children. To parents, there's nothing more special than their children. Nothing they care about more. And the public have to have confidence in those involved in the teaching profession.'

He sentenced Dixon to 18 months for each of the three breaches of trust, to be served concurrently, and an additional six months for perverting the course of justice. 

On release, Dixon must sign the sex offenders' register for a period of 10 years.

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Rahul Odedra, 46, found a sick sexual thrill in watching women 'in the act of wiping' and was caught when he tried to film up the skirt of a victim A teacher who hid cameras in the female toilets of three schools where he worked has been jailed for more than four years. Rahul Odedra, 46, Quedgeley, Gloucester, would position the cameras in toilet roll holders and focus them on the genital areas of female school staff using the loo. He pleaded guilty at Gloucester Crown Court to one offence of attempting to possession an indecent image, two offences of possession of indecent images and twenty offences of voyeurism. The offences took place between 2009 to 2017. Prosecutor Anjali Gohil told Judge Ian Lawrie QC the bulk of the images were of adult women but there were also images of children. Odedra committed the offences in various locations including in three schools in Gloucestershire, she said, and hid cameras in staff toilets. "He would set it up in the lunch period and then take it down later," she said. Odedra seemed to focus on filming people wiping their genitalia, she added. "No one goes to a toilet, locks the door and expects to be filmed for third parties to see," the prosecutor continued. "Great care was taken by him positioning the cameras. He would hide the camera in toilet roll holders." When he was arrested and his home was searched police found 200 images on his computer equipment, Ms Gohil told the judge. The police analysed the images and found that he had cropped and clipped the films he captured in the toilet so that he could watch back to back images of females "in the act of wiping." Ms Gohil told the judge that Odedra was detected when he attempted to film up the skirt of one of his victims and she spotted him. The judge noted that this was "an escalation" from his remote filming in the toilet, as he was present and using the camera of his phone, which he had attached to a ruler with blue tack. "It's a step up from covert," the judge said. "It's becoming brazen." Ms Gohil said "the collateral damage to entirely innocent parties has been significant. People feel violated and betrayed" The judge agreed saying "it's a gross breach of trust." Ms Gohil added "He abused trust to gain sexual gratification." She told the judge that Odedra had no previous convictions. Whilst he remained silent in his first police interview, he made full admissions in the second but "was reluctant to admit sexual interest." The judge noted that by the time of Odedra's interview with a probation officer he had started to "come to terms with his sexual interest." Odedra's lawyer, Joseph Keating, said his client knew "that that these are very serious offences that cross the custody threshold." "At the time of doing this, he had little comprehension of the impact on the victims as they were not physically harmed, but he now fully understands the lasting impact that will be hard to bear," Mr Keating said. "He would like to apologise. He is deeply sorry for what he did. "This was born out of an interest in voyeurism. He reiterates that his primary interest was in adults. "He says there was never a chance this would escalate beyond voyeurism." The judge indicated that he was prepared to accept that, as "over the length of time he did this, there was no physical contact." Mr Keating told the judge that Odedra "had lost everything good in his life" as his career was at an end and it had "torn his family apart." "His remorse is genuine, and he is struggling in prison. He is a broken man, terrified of the people around him and the circumstances of his detention" Mr Keating concluded. The judge said: "If you hold a secret about your sexual view of the world it can be toxic, and he is paying the price." Sentencing Odedra the judge told him "You are facing the consequences of what is long held voyeuristic compulsion to look at females. "A toxic secret with the consequence you are going to prison. "These offences cover a deliberate and persistent course of conduct. Explicit moving images of them using the toilet. "Most of the victims were young, some are children. "You took great care fixing camera angles in all the venues you chose. "This was a gross breach of trust. Your offending for the later offences show you going beyond furtive recording. "People's dignity should be respected. This was a carefully calculated intrusion into people's privacy. "This is some of the worst examples of this type of offending. You caused immeasurable emotional harm to your victims. "There is mitigation, not least your guilty plea, and you are not wholly bad, and not wholly good. "You were a good teacher, and it must have come as a massive collective shock to your family and friends. "Custody will have a significant impact on you. I must impose a prison term of note. "This is not a harmless activity if done on the quiet as some might think. "I know you appreciate the harm and hurt you have caused. That lies at your door and your door alone." Alongside the four year three month jail term, Odedra was given a sexual harm prevention order and has to sign the sex offender register, both for the rest of his life.

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A Devon man has been jailed for arranging to meet a 13-year-old girl at the train station but instead being confronted by a group of vigilante paedophile hunters.

Gary Parker, 43, was snared by UK Database who filmed his citizen’s arrest at St David’s Station in Exeter.

They told him the person he thought was a 13-year-old girl was really a fictitious online creation.

Parker, of Brays Close, Crediton, immediately admitted what he had done. In court he pleaded guilty to attempting to meet a girl under 16 for sexual activity; attempting to engage a child in sexual communication via Facebook Messenger; and attempting to arrange or facilitate a sexual offence with a girl.

He was jailed for 15 months.

It is the latest in an increasing number of cases involving paedophile hunters to come before the courts.The offences took place between December 4 and December 9.

Judge Graham Cottle said: “These offences arise out of short series of events involving a fictitious girl called Sammy.

“The prevalence of, and increase in, this type of offending is of great concern and sentencing must reflect the extent of that concern. The message has to be sent out and received that men like you, with or without previous convictions, who may engage in this sort of activity are committing a serious offence, which unless there are wholly exceptional circumstances, they will receive an immediate custodial sentence.

“However difficult you find it to accept what you’ve done it’s quite clear the plans you had for this fictitious girl involved sexual activity.”

The court was told that within minutes of befriending the ‘girl’ online he had initiated sexualised chat. UK Database published details of the conversations and the arrest of Parker on its Facebook site.

It was clear to Parker from the outset that the person he believed he was talking to was just 13, the court was told. But this did not stop him arranging to meet her for sex in Exeter.

Peter Seigne, mitigating, said Parker knew now he had been spending ‘way too much time’ on the internet.

He would spend up to six hours a day playing games and started to accepted friend requests in order to gain online coins to carry on playing.

He said the defendant found the citizen’s arrest ‘very frightening’ and wanted to get help from probation for his behaviour.

Following his release from prison Parker will be subject to licence and supervision conditions. He was given a Sexual Harm Prevention Order for 10 years and must sign the Sex Offender Register.

After the sentencing, an NSPCC spokesperson for South West England said: “Parker’s shocking behaviour highlights the dangers posed to youngsters by offenders online. He fully believed he was speaking to a 13-year-old girl via social media, but continued to groom her before attempting to meet her.

“This kind of predatory activity can ruin childhoods, with the devastating effects lasting into adulthood. While the victim in this case was fictitious, we know that ‘real’ children are being targeted by groomers every day in the UK.

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Officers traced Aron Marczylo, who worked for the club until July 2017, to his home address in Shirley where he lives with his parents and found him in possession of the offensive material.

Among his collection included more than 6,000 category A indecent images of children as well as videos in which children were abused by adults.

In some of the videos, the young victims were seen crying as they were abused.

Southampton Crown Court heard that Marczylo used a peer to peer search system in order to obtain and download the images.

Timothy Akers, prosecuting, told Southampton Crown Court that police tracked the 30-year-old and paid him a visit on October 25, 2016.

He said: "Police seized his computer, laptop, mobile phone and tower unit for his pc.

"The defendant had 78 category A, 12 category B and seven category C movies.

"He was also found to have thousands of still images, of which the majority of them were the highest category, on his hard drive...some of the children involved are aged as young as four-years-old."

"In one video there is reference to a child, thought to be 11-years-old, who is in discernible pain during the events taking place in it.

"There is another video in which a child is crying in pain."

Mr Akers added: "In his interview he said he would watch the videos with his girlfriend."

He identifies as pan sexual and describes as having fantasies involving child abuse although he has never committed the fantasy."

Mitigating, Berenice Mulvanny told the court that Marczylo has struggled with depression, anxiety and suffered bullying as a child.

In one instance, she said, Marczylo had his hair set alight as a child.

Marczylo, of Janson Road, Southampton, was sentenced to two years imprisonment, suspended for two years. He was made the subject of a sexual harm prevention order which will run for five years and will be on the sex offenders' register for 10 years.