Locations
Riverside, Ringwood, BH24
Description
A MAN who made plans to sexually abuse a nine-year-old child has been jailed after an undercover police sting.
Stephen Biles, 61, thought he was speaking to someone who would arrange for him to abuse the girl in a hotel, but was actually communicating with a police officer.
The undercover investigation between January and March 2020 discussed a decoy child, who did not exist.
On April 1, 2020, Biles was arrested at his home in Riverside, Ringwood, with devices seized containing 52 category C indecent images of children.
Work by the North East Regional Organised Crime Unit (NEROCU) allowed further investigation by Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary’s Internet Child Abuse Investigation Team (ICAT).
Biles was charged with making indecent images of children and two counts of arranging or facilitating the commission of a child sex offence.
He pleaded guilty to the indecent images but maintained his innocence on the other two charges.
However, after a trial at Portsmouth Crown Court on September 4 this year, Biles was found guilty.
On September 27, at Southampton Crown Court, Biles was jailed for three years and nine months.
He was also made subject to an indefinite sexual harm prevention order and placed on the sex offender register indefinitely.