Locations
Lothian Park, St. Asaph, Denbighshire, LL17
Description
A man who tried to contact girls he thought were aged 12 and 13 for sex was today jailed for six years. Neil Doherty was in fact communicating online with undercover police officers.
The defendant, of Lothians Park, St Asaph, had denied seven offences but was convicted after a trial. Caernarfon Crown Court heard the offences happened between January 17, 2021 and May 28, 2021.
Prosecutor Nicolas Williams said the crimes relate to Doherty communicating with police decoys whom he believed were 12 and 13-year-old girls and arranging to meet two of them for sex. Specific details of the offences were not outlined in court today.
The court heard he has a criminal record including a conviction for robbery in 1985 for which he was jailed for five years. Anna Price, defending, said it was a sad case in that although her client has previous convictions there are none for sexual offences until now.
She said: "Fortunately there were no children - these were attempts rather than the full offence. It's not a case where the defendant has been apprehended en route to meeting a child."
She added that Doherty has alcohol issues and heart and back problems. The judge Mr Recorder Wyn Lloyd Jones told the defendant: "It saddens me to have to sentence someone of your age for so many offences of a serious nature."
He said Doherty claimed he believed he was messaging an adult in "role play". But the judge said: "I am entirely satisfied that you committed these offences for your own selfish sexual gratification.
"You believed you were communicating with young girls. (But) the people you were actually communicating with were police undercover operatives.
"If there had been real children you would have been grooming real children - and really vulnerable children." The judge noted Doherty's relationship with his partner had broken down.
He had been feeling low at the time of the offences and was drinking nine to ten pints a day. He lives with his elderly mother, 87, and is a father and grandfather.
His family probably think a great deal of him and the proceedings must be hard for them. He jailed Doherty for six years for two counts of attempting to incite a female under 13 to engage in sexual activity which was penetrative.
He faced three counts of attempting to cause a female under 16 to engage in sexual communication and was given four, nine and four month concurrent sentences respectively. And he was sentenced to four years imprisonment for two counts of arranging to meet a child for a child sex offence, also to run concurrently to the main sentence.
The judge also gave the defendant a sexual harm prevention order to last indefinitely. His phone which was used for the offences will be forfeited and destroyed.