Craig Richardson 38

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Craig Richardson had already been jailed last year for targeting what he thought was a young girl online, but after his release he once again tried to meet young girls around Christmas.

Both the girls he thought he was meeting were actually paedophile hunters, groups set up online to snare paedophiles and report them to the police.

One of the groups confronted him at Castleford Bus Station as he attempted to meet a young girl who didn't exist.

Just before Christmas in 2021, he started a chat with a 'girl' going by the name of Nicky. She told him she was underage from the start of their conversation, prosecutor Bashir Ahmed told Leeds Crown Court.He asked for a photo of her, but then quickly began making sexual suggestions, including asking her for pictures of her on the toilet.

He arranged to meet her on January 3 but was confronted by members of Fighting Against the Evil, who livestreamed the sting before the police arrived.

Richardson, of School Street, Castleford, gave no comments during his police interview.

However, the 36-year-old had already been communicating with 13-year-old 'Lucy', a fake decoy profile posted by hunter group Hunted and Confronted UK.

Again he made sexual suggestions and asked her to send photographs. He was confronted by the group before being taken away by the police, but he also refused to comment during that interview.

The court was told Richardson has eight previous convictions for 12 offences. This included attempting to incite a child into sexual activity in 2017, and again in 2021 when he was jailed or 18 months and given a sexual harm prevention order (SHPO).

Held on remand at HMP Leeds, he appeared at Leeds Crown Court via video link on Friday, where he admitted nine new charges relating to grooming youngsters over the internet, including counts of attempting to incite a child into sexual activity, attempting to cause a child to watch a sexual activity and breach of the sexual harm prevention order (SHPO).

Mitigating for Richardson, Jane Cooper said: "There's not a great deal for me to say. In terms of his personal mitigation, this is a defendant with learning difficulties. He is an isolated individual who became more isolated from his previous conviction."

Judge Tom Bayliss QC deemed that Richardson posed a serious risk of causing harm to children.

He said: "You went to Castleford Bus Station and I'm quite sure with the object of putting into practice what you were trying to arrange."

He gave him an eight-year sentence with an extended four-year licence period. He also gave him a SHPO of indeterminate length, limiting his internet use.