Paul Mccombe 50

Description

A company director told a 14-year-old ‘girl’ who asked him for a job that she could be ‘daddy’s sex slave’.

Paul McCombe, 49, had been due to stand trial at Oxford Crown Court on a charge of attempted sexual communication with a child.

But he pleaded guilty on Monday (February 20) after a judge threw out submissions that the prosecution should be stopped as McCombe had been ‘entrapped’ in the undercover police sting operation.

McCombe. who has previously been convicted of sending sexual messages to children, added the ‘girl’ on Snapchat on July 15. The Oxfordshire man claimed to be called Connor Jones, a man in his late 20s.

By July 19, the girl ‘M’ – in fact a decoy account run by an undercover police officer – asked ‘CJ’ whether she knew him. He replied: “No.”

They began exchanging messages. Those made it clear McCombe understood the girl’s purported age, as at one point he asked: “When was you 14? You are sexy.”

Over the ensuing days, they sent a series of images to each other. None of hers were sexual, while his showed his exposed groin.

In another exchange, she told McCombe she was going to Asda with her mum and asked him she should ring him. “Yes, as long as you are naked hahaha,” he replied.

‘M’ asked the defendant what he did for a living. Told that he ran his own company, she asked him for a job. He said: “You can be daddy’s sex slave.”

Later in their correspondence, he said he would come to see her and made a veiled reference to sexual activity that could happen between them on that visit. She had earlier told him she lived in Newcastle, while McCombe said he lived in Oxford.

Lawyers for McCombe had tried to get the incriminating Snapchat messages he sent the decoy account thrown out, which would have cut the prosecution’s case at the knees.

Recorder John Ryder KC did not buy Richard Sutton KC’s argument that McCombe was the victim of police entrapment and messages that were ‘come hither in nature’. He ruled that the messages were admissible – and so could go in front of the jury.

After that ruling, McCombe, formerly of an address in Shrivenham, returned to courtroom four and entered his guilty plea to a single count of attempted sexual communication with a child under-16.

He was granted conditional bail to return to court on April 21.