Locations
Crown Street, Stowmarket, Suffolk, IP14
Description
A convicted sex offender who had online chats about sex with volunteers from four paedophile hunter groups posing as schoolgirls has been jailed for three years.
Sentencing Daniel Gibbs, Recorder Emma Nash described him as a danger to children and said if the decoy children had been real they would have been caused significant trauma.
She said that in the chats Gibbs had told the decoy girls to delete the messages he had sent them because he knew what he was doing was wrong and that he could go to prison.
“You don’t consider yourself a danger to children. I disagree with you,” said the judge.
Gibbs, 33, of Crown Street, Stowmarket admitted three offences of attempted sexual communication with a child, attempting to incite a child to engage in sexual activity and sending naked pictures of himself.
In addition to jailing Gibbs, Recorder Nash made him the subject of a sexual harm prevention order for 20 years and ordered him to sign the sex offenders’ register for the rest of his life.
Marc Brown, prosecuting at Ipswich Crown Court , said Gibbs was arrested after he had online chats about sex with volunteers from paedophile hunter groups “Angels of Innocence” and “Justice Reborn” who were posing as schoolgirls.
In the chats Gibbs had claimed to be a swimming coach and after telling one of the girls he believed to be 13 that she was cute he had sent her a naked picture of himself and asked her about her school uniform and her underwear.
Gibbs had told another decoy child who told him she was ten that he wanted to see her vagina, knickers and school uniform.
When the girl said she was in the bath he had persistently tried to video call her and then accused her of wasting his time.
In chats with a decoy posing as another 13-year-old girl he had sent a picture of his erect penis and had encouraged to touch herself in a sexual way.
The court heard that in 2007 when he was 15 Gibbs had sexually assaulted a girl under 13 and later that year he had raped a boy under 13.
The court was told Gibbs was genuinely remorseful and had been lonely and bored at the time of the recent offence which were committed after he had kept out of trouble for 17 years.