Locations
Warwick Terrace, Sunderland, SR3
Description
A perverted 78-year-old pensioner, George Laidler, who offered money to view babies and children being abused overseas in depraved online chats, has been branded a danger and jailed. Laidler, previously imprisoned for child sex attacks, asked about costs for young children to be abused on camera in Africa.
In one conversation with what he believed was a 15-year-old Ghanaian schoolboy, he requested to see sexual activity involving a six-year-old. He also discussed a sex act on a "baby boy," but when told the child was nine, Laidler replied it was "too old."
The vile exchanges were uncovered when a bail hostel worker found a secret phone Laidler, a registered sex offender, should have declared. The device also contained a child abuse video and an extreme pornography image.
Laidler, of Warwick Terrace, Sunderland, admitted attempted sexual communication with a child, three charges of arranging a child sex offence, making an indecent child photograph, possessing extreme porn, and breaching a sexual harm prevention order.
The court heard he was jailed in 2018 for three indecent assaults on children and child abuse images offences. He has now been sentenced to six years and eight months.
Recorder Toby Hedworth told him: "The chat on the phone indicates you were communicating with what you deemed to be individuals in Africa, particularly Ghana and you were seeking from those opportunities to engage remotely in sexual offences with extremely young children.
"Any review of the words exchanged between you and those you were communicating with indicates the most depraved conduct on your behalf and the most depraved desires.
"You are, and remain in my view, a danger to members of the community if you were to have access to children. You are 78 years of age now and I have to have regard to that in terms of when and if you will be able to return to the community."
Defence barrister Shaun Routledge said the chats showed those on the other end were "more interested in getting money out of the defendant."