Locations
Webb Street, Liverpool, L7
Description
Darren Friday bought a phone from Cash Converters to speak to who he believed was a 13-year-old girl
A convicted paedophile was jailed once again after being caught chatting up and arranging to meet with a 13-year-old girl.
Darren Friday, 53, received 14 months in prison in August 2018 and a Sexual Harm Prevention Order (SHPO) imposed on him for ten years.
But despite this the a dad-of-two began chatting with who he believed was a child, but was in fact an undercover police officer.
A judge in Liverpool Crown Court on Monday, December 13, jailed Friday for three years and told him the case was aggravated by his previous conviction.
The judge said he had breached the SHPO by having two mobile phones, and another aggravating fact was that he had used one of them to commit sexual offences. The judge ordered Friday to sign the Sex Offenders Register for life.
Steven Ball, prosecuting, told the court that Friday, using the handle Darren68, began communicating with the girl via the online Kik Messenger chatroom on September 17 last year.
He established straight away that she was 13 and he claimed to be 35. He started asking her to send him photographs of her in her underwear and naked and went on to ask for videos of her naked.
Mr Ball said he wanted to have sexual intercourse with her and in other conversations directed how he wanted her to pose for photographs. He also asked if she was a virgin and said he wanted to be her first.
Friday progressed to referring to them meeting up and asked the girl, who purported to live in Somerset, for the name of some local hotels and he again asked for more photographs of her.
In their last online chat his tone changed and he began asking why she had not been available to chat to him and on November 28 he sent her a 10 telephone credit and "told her he loved her".
Mr Ball told the court: "He telephoned her and that was the first time they had directly spoken. The defendant told her she had a sexy voice and there was a discussion about the possibility of meeting up sooner rather than later."
His sex offender manager went to visit him on November 25 and asked if he had any electronic devices which he denied but when police went to his home to arrest him they found he had two mobile phones.
One of them, a Samsung, was unregistered and he had bought it from Cash Converters the previous month. When interviewed he made no comment.
Friday, of Webb Street, Wavertree, pleaded guilty to six offences including attempting to cause or incite a child to engage in sexual activity; attempted sexual communication with a child; attempting to meet a child following sexual grooming and breaching a Sexual Harm Prevention Order.
Kate Morley, defending, said: "He is a man of few words, he offers no excuses.
"There is clearly a fundamental issue, a disturbing interest in young females."
He only has the convictions for which he was jailed in 2018 and during that period in prison he did not participate in a rehabilitation course because "he was embarrassed and it was a very short course".
Miss Morley said that he lived alone and was somewhat isolated. He suffers from arthritis and curvature of the spine and walks with a cane as he has mobility issues.
She added: "He knows he has done wrong and is going to be punished. He has difficulty explaining his behaviour but for what it is worth he is sorry."
The offences for which he was jailed previously involved him chatting online with two girls aged 13 and 14, who actually did not exist and were fake profiles set up by a paedophile hunting group.
During those chats he made similar comments and requests as in the new offences.