Description
Police caught a convicted sex offender naked on his bed while he was busy exchanging sexual messages with an undercover police officer who was pretending to be a 12-year-old boy.
Ian McIntyre "couldn't help" himself and brazenly made contact with the decoy boy even though he was already under investigation for doing exactly the same thing very recently.
He failed to learn his lesson from his arrest and was already on the sex offenders' register after an earlier conviction in 2017, Hull Crown Court heard.
McIntyre, 56, formerly of Anlaby, admitted five offences involving attempting to cause a boy under 13 to engage in sexual activity and attempting to engage in sexual communication with a child. A jury had been sworn in for a trial but no evidence had been heard before he changed his pleas on the second day.
Paul Genney, prosecuting, said that McIntyre thought that he was talking online to two 12-year-old boys but they did not exist and really he was exchanging messages with decoys set up by undercover police.
McIntyre contacted the first fake boy on gay dating app Grindr and on Snapchat and told him that he was aged 36. He encouraged the fake boy to commit a sex act and sent him intimate pictures and video of himself.
McIntyre told the boy that he loved him and wanted to kiss him all over and to be sexually intimate with him. He incited him to sexual activity and suggested meeting up at swimming baths in Albert Avenue, Hull, where they would share the same cubicle, although no formal arrangement was made.
He was arrested in December 2019 but claimed that he had been "framed" by a man that he named.
McIntyre was released pending further investigations but did the same again between May and June 2020 with another decoy boy that he thought was 12. They met on Grindr and McIntyre again pretended that he was aged 36.
He encouraged the fake boy to engage in sexual activity and sent him pictures and videos. When police arrested McIntyre in August 2020, he was lying naked on a bed upstairs at his Anlaby home, using his phone to communicate with the non-existent boy, who was really an undercover police officer.
He denied everything and again claimed that he had been "set up and framed" by the same man. Police contacted the man, who had, in reality, not seen him for years
McIntyre had a previous conviction in March 2017 for making one indecent picture of a boy but he had been cleared at a trial of sexually assaulting another boy. He was on the sex offenders' register at the time of the latest offences.
Stephen Robinson, mitigating, said that McIntyre finally admitted the most recent offences when a further piece of evidence emerged after the trial started.
"No harm resulted," said Mr Robinson. "No harm was ever going to result because these were two undercover police officers. There was discussion about meeting but there were no concrete plans ever to do that.
"There was talk of the swimming baths and meeting there but no concrete suggestion of it and no specific time, date or place. The previous conviction aggravates the situation but it was a more minor offence in the spectrum of sexual offending."
McIntyre had worked since the age of 16, including for a long time as an HGV driver. He had previously been married for about 20 years and had two adult sons. He later had other relationships but "sought solace in contacting people on the internet" after that.
"He became obsessed with that," said Mr Robinson. The vast majority of it was with people of the correct age. He "behaved very badly" by contacting the fake 12-year-old boys.
Judge Mark Bury said of the first decoy boy: "He was an undercover police officer employed to catch out people such as you, who have a clear sexual interest in underage children." McIntyre was arrested after the first incident.
"You did exactly the same again," said Judge Bury. "You weren't to know that the person at the other end of the communication was a police officer.
"You were released under investigation and you couldn't help yourself and you did exactly what you had done before you were arrested."
McIntyre, who has recently had a care/of address at a lodges park in Brandesburton, near Beverley, was jailed for eight years. He was given an indefinite sexual harm prevention order and must register as a sex offender indefinitely.