Locations
Drum Lane, Chester Le Street, DH3
Description
A predator who arranged to meet an underage teen for sex has now been sentenced – after a joint North East police investigation.
Joseph Lee, 46, is now behind bars after he travelled to Framwellgate Moor to meet a 15-year-old girl he arranged to have sex with online.
However, what he didn’t know was that officers from the North East Regional Organised Crime Unit (NEROCU) and Durham Constabulary would be waiting to arrest him instead.
NEROCU detectives worked alongside officers from Durham Constabulary’s Online Child Abuse Investigator Team, to carry out their operation on April 26 last year, and thanks to their partnership working Lee is now no longer a danger to children.
When interviewed Lee, of Drum Lane, Chester-le-Street, offered no explanation of why he did what he did and offered no guilty plea.
However, due to the extensive evidence file compiled by officers, a Jury found Lee guilty of Arranging/Facilitating the Commission of a Child Sex Offence earlier this year on October 27 at Durham Crown Court.
Today (Monday), he appeared at the same court and was sentenced to four years imprisonment, a ten year Sexual Harm Prevention Order and will be placed on the Sex Offender Register indefinitely.