Locations
March, Cambridgeshire, PE15
Description
A convicted sex offender who shared explicit messages with what he thought were children on social media has been jailed.
Christopher Bradshaw, 32, contacted an account in May, not knowing it was a decoy run by an online child abuse activist group.
Despite the “child” telling him she was only 13 years old and still at school, he proceeded to strike up conversations of a sexual nature before sharing his number and moving the conversations to WhatsApp.
He also contacted another decoy account around the same time, with the “child” explaining she was only 14. Again, Bradshaw continued his explicit conversations and shared his number so they could exchange messages on WhatsApp.
Despite not using his real name, officers traced the phone number shared with the decoy accounts back to Bradshaw and later arrested him.
Bradshaw, from March, pleaded guilty to inciting a girl aged 13-15 to engage in sexual activity and failing to comply with sex offender notification requirements. He was sentenced to six years in prison at Peterborough Crown Court on Tuesday (23 December).
Detective Sergeant Rob Hutchings, from the management of sexual or violent offenders unit (MOSOVO), said:
“Bradshaw is clearly a risk to children. Protecting young people from harm is one of our top priorities and we will do all we can to bring offenders to justice.”