Locations
Langdale Close, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, CB1
Description
A Cambridge paedophile asked who he thought was a 13-year-old girl for naked photos the day before he was meant to appear in court for a number of breaches of a court order and Sex Offender requirements. However, his crimes were uncovered when the young girl turned out to be an adult.
Thomas Turney, 41, was caught at his Cambridge home in March this year, hours before he was due to be sentenced in court. Turney, who was conversing with an online child activist group on a dating app, in another conversation asked another adult pretending to be a 13-year-old girl if she wanted sex with him and also asked for a picture.
On the same app, he asked someone posing as a 14-year-old if they wanted to be a whore as well as repeatedly asking another posing as 13-year-old if she wanted a boyfriend and said 13 is not too young. This put him in breach of his Sexual Harm Prevention Order (SHPO) which forbade him to communicate with any child he had not met in person or should reasonably be aware to be under 18.
The following day, Turney was supposed to be sentenced at Cambridge Crown Court after admitting three breaches of an SHPO and two breaches of his Sex Offender Register notification requirements but that was adjourned. In September 2021, detectives had visited him at home and warned him after they found he had been using a dating site he had not notified police about.
Detectives visited him again in October and requested to inspect his mobile phone which was a condition of his SHPO. Turney handed over the phone and his internet history showed vast usage of a dating site where his profile picture was not him and he used the username tony674665.
He was found to be in breach of his SHPO by using a different name as well as his notification requirements by not telling police within three days of activating this profile name. Further inspection of Turneys phone internet history found he had been using another dating app he had failed to tell police about, further putting him in breach of his SHPO.
He was using a profile called Dragon_Master (Tina Turney) and used the profile picture of a blonde woman wearing a revealing dress. Detectives also found he had been using Facebook under the name Lucy Stevens with the same profile picture used for the Dragon_Master account.
Again, this put him in breach of both his SHPO and notification requirements. On Friday, August 19 at Cambridge Crown Court, Turney, of Langdale Close, Cambridge, was jailed for three years, having admitted seven breaches of his SHPO, two counts of attempting to engage in sexual communication with a child and two counts of failing to comply with Sex Offender Register notification requirements.
He was also given a 10-year SHPO. DC Andrew McKeane said: Thomas Turney clearly knew the requirements of both his SHPO as well as his notification requirements but showed blatant disregard for them by using different names on dating apps and social media, not telling police about some of the apps and names he was using and attempting to engage in sexual communication with a child.
He is a risk to children and I am grateful that we were alerted to this illegal behaviour which in turn brought about a swift guilty plea. Cambridgeshire Constabulary take a zero-tolerance approach and our main aim within the Management of Sexual or Violent Offender (MOSOVO) team is to protect vulnerable children whether in the real world or online.
In this instance, the use of Turneys SHPO allowed swift evidence gathering as well as identifying further offending. His fresh 10-year order going forward will allow for this to continue once he is released from prison and the unit will utilise these powers on every available occasion.