Locations
The Common, Botesdale, Diss, IP22
Description
A convicted sex offender told an undercover police officer he wanted her to give him oral sex, thinking she was a 12-year-old girl, a court has heard.
Barrie Williams had been chatting online to who he thought was a young girl in Somerset but who was in fact a police officer acting as a decoy.
Norwich Crown Court heard Williams, who had previous convictions for child sex offences, made sexual remarks to the officer, talking about her giving him oral sex, and taking graphically about what it would be like to have sex with her.
Richard Paterson, prosecuting, said in the conversations, carried out on social media platforms, including SnapChat, between August 2024 and November 2024, the officer clearly stated her purported age was 12.
The prosecutor said Williams, from the Common, Botesdale, Diss, also asked her if she wanted to share some "sexy pictures" for him to wake up to.
The 35-year-old defendant also said if she was closer to home he would get a hotel room so he could stay with her.
Williams, who has three previous convictions for 24 offences, including making indecent images of children, appeared in court, sitting at Whitefriars, on Friday.
He had previously admitted attempting to incite a female child under 13 to engage in sexual activity.
He also admitted attempting to engage in sexual communication with a child and being an adult causing a child to watch sexual activity.
In addition Williams admitted attempting to breach a Sexual Harm Prevention Order (SHPO) - imposed in June 2021 after previous offending - by contacting the child and breaching the SHPO.
Jailing Williams for 45 months Judge David Pugh said although the victim in this case was an adult decoy the defendant "posed a high risk of harm to female children".
Jude Durr, mitigating, said: "Plainly and self-evidently the appropriate sentence is immediate custody. The only question is how long."
The defendant read to the court a letter in which he said he understood he needed to be punished for his actions.
He said he had made some "foolish" decisions in the past which he was "disgusted" with and "ashamed of" and was "sorry" for.
Williams was also made the subject of an indefinite SHPO and put on the sex offenders' register, also indefinitely.