Jacob Bean 23

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The devastated father of a 10-year-old girl groomed on Snapchat and WhatsApp by a paedophile posing as a teenage boy told a court he feels he has failed as a parent.

In a moving statement read out at the sentencing hearing of Chartham resident Jacob Bean, the dad described the damaging impact on his daughter of having been "exposed to one of the world's greatest evils".

He wrote: "As a father you never want anything bad to happen to your children. You do what you can to protect them and right now I feel like I have failed.

"My 10-year-old daughter has been exposed to one of the world's greatest evils. We have lost our daughter, the way we knew her to be.

"What can a parent possibly do to make this better? She has been stripped of her innocence. She is angry and has tried to stab herself.

"I cannot explain how hard that is to see and not be able to take her pain away.

"She has so much of her childhood left but it has now been tarnished by this person who thought it was OK to talk to her like this and send her such obscene things."

But he added that although the conclusion of legal proceedings would not bring the family's suffering to an end, he vowed to "do my best to be there for my daughter and help her however I can".

Canterbury Crown Court heard that Bean's twisted behaviour with the girl included sending her child abuse videos and photos of his penis, as well as encouraging her to perform sex acts on herself.

The 23-year-old also talked about rape, saying he would carry on even if told 'No' or to stop, and asked her to try to recruit her friends into watching him having sex and masturbating.

She later told police she had deleted some of their messages because she thought she would be in trouble.

At the time, Bean was already under investigation for the grooming of three other underage girls - one said to be living in Germany - on Snapchat, as well as making indecent images.

Prosecutor Paul Valder said Bean also asked a victim - one of whom was later identified by police through her school uniform - to call him "a pervert" and told another aged 13 that he wanted to make her pregnant.

Following his initial arrest in August last year, the sex offender, of Highland Road, had claimed that his accounts had been hacked and accessed by others.

He also said a friend had regular use of his phone and denied any knowledge of the 24 child abuse images found, one depicting a victim as young as 12 months old.

However, after the abuse of the 10-year-old came to light in July this year, he later pleaded guilty to four offences of sexual communication with a child, four of making indecent images, two of attempting to cause a child to watch a sexual act and causing or inciting a child under 13 to engage in penetrative sexual activity.

Shanda McAteer, defending, told the court Bean did not offer any excuse for his offending and had shown genuine remorse.

But telling the court the defendant "struggles" to explain why he did what he did, Ms McAteer added: "He was suffering from very low mood and social isolation, was having difficulty opening up to his family and how he was feeling, and turned to the internet to communicate with others and then these offences have occurred.

"He doesn't attempt to excuse what he did in any way at all, and has now heard the impact of his actions."

Bean, who has no previous convictions, was jailed for a total of five-and-a-half years.

Passing sentence on Tuesday, Judge Simon James told the convicted paedophile he had used the internet to "actively pursue" his sexual interest in children.

But although he accepted Bean was suffering from poor mental health at the time which may have contributed to making “poor and reckless” choices, he said he "struggled to comprehend" how it could be argued that there was a “direct causative link” between his depression and “seeking to incite children to engage in sexual activity”.

Speaking of the "obvious, wholly understandable, and profound" impact on the 10-year-old victim and her family, Judge James added: "Children, and indeed parents, are entitled to look to the courts for protection from adults seeking to sexually exploit, abuse and corrupt children over the internet."

He also remarked that the disparity in age between Bean and his victims’, together with his pretence of being a child in order to gain their “trust and response”, were both significant aggravating features.

On release, Bean will be subject to indefinite sex offender notification requirements and a sexual harm prevention order.