Locations
Edgewater, St. Marys Island, Chatham, ME4
Description
A Chatham sex offender who offered money to children he groomed and abused has been jailed for 13 years.
Matthew Lockwood used social media apps to target and manipulate teenage boys as young as 13.
Lockwood, of Edgewater on St Mary’s Island, accessed online platforms including Snapchat and Grindr during a campaign of abuse between 2016 and 2023.
He was arrested in February 2023 and an investigation linked the 47-year-old to a catalogue of offences, which included sexual activity with at least four children.
At Canterbury Crown Court, Lockwood pleaded guilty to 22 counts. These included charges of sexual activity with a child, paying for sexual services of a child, sexual exploitation of a child, and sexual communications with a child. He also admitted offences relating to the possession and distribution of thousands of illegal images of children, many in the most serious category and which included videos of some of the victims he had contact with.
Lockwood was sentenced on Friday 12 January 2024 to 13 years in jail. He was added to the Sex Offenders' Register for life and handed a 15 year Sexual Harm Prevention Order.