Locations
Fairfield, Stockton, TS19
Description
A "committed paedophile" who tried tried to meet 'schoolgirl' and downloaded child abuse and sex-with-snake clips has been handed a sentence of over nine years.
Stockton's Paul Whitfield, 53, arranged to meet a "13 year old girl" in Lincoln - but the online profile he was chatting with actually belonged to a police decoy who called herself "Carrie." When police raided his home, they found videos on his phone showing young children being sexually abused.
Whitfield had also downloaded videos of adults involved in sexual activity with a snake and a horse.
On Wednesday, Whitfield appeared at Teesside Crown Court, on video link from Stafford prison. The court heard that he pretended to be a teenager and he began talking to "13 year old Carrie" in February 2023, about "holding and kissing" her.
The two discussed telling her school that she had a dentist appointment, on February 15, when they agreed to meet - but undercover cop Carrie cancelled the meeting.
Police then raided Whitfield's house and took away two mobile phones - that he had failed to register as a convicted sex offender.
The phones showed Whitfield's arrangements to meet the girl, and he had also downloaded over 900 photos and videos of children being sexually abused. He had looked at videos showing sexual activity with "multiple animals."
Whitfield forwarded some of the videos to other people, including one category A video - featuring the most severe type of child abuse - to a group of 227 users.
Whitfield, formerly of Fairfield in Stockton, but now of Stafford prison, pleaded guilty to:
- arranging the commission of a child sex offence;
- making and distributing indecent images of children;
- possessing an extreme pornographic image betraying an act of intercourse with an animal
- breaching sex offender notification requirements.
Previous offences
In 2015, Whitfield was handed an extended 13-year sentence for the attempted abduction of a child, where he had watched a 10 year old girl for two hours, from his car. When she left the playground, he told her to get in his car to hide "because the police were looking for her." The girl ran off to her grandmother.
Hours earlier, he had approached a nine-year old in Stockton, telling her she was beautiful. The girl ran off. The court was told that Whitfield said the thought of having a child in his car gave him a “sexual thrill”.
In 2023, Whitfield was sent back to jail for 16 months, for breaching his sex offender notification requirements.
Mitigating for Whitfield's latest sex offences, Tom Bennett told the court that in the case of the arranged meeting in Lincoln, there was "no actual child victim."
Judge Timothy Stead told Whitfield that he is a "committed and determined paedophile" and handed him an extended prison sentence totalling nine-years-and-eight-months. He will serve four-years-eight-months in prison; and the remaining five-years on licence in the community.