Graham Jarvis 38

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Household Cavalry soldier Graham Jarvis jailed for 12 years after plotting to rape a seven-year-old girl and a 10-month-old baby

Graham Jarvis, 38, a Household Cavalry soldier based at Hyde Park barracks in central London, has been jailed for 12 years after arranging to sexually abuse two children he believed were real.

At Southwark Crown Court on Thursday he was sentenced for two counts of attempting to arrange the commission of a child sex offence. He denied the charges, was convicted at trial, and has been dismissed from the Army.

In January 2024 Jarvis began talking online with a woman who said she lived in Wales and had daughters aged seven and 10 months. He told her he was “into girls” and arranged to travel to her home in February. The woman was an undercover police officer. He was arrested that month before the meeting could take place.

The court heard he asked about the older girl’s sexual experience and was told she had previously been abused by two men. He also asked the mother to help him rape the baby.

Judge Adam Hiddleston told Jarvis “this was not a case of fantasy on your part.” He said he had no doubt that when the meeting was set up, “you believed the children were real.” He added: “You wanted to meet them and when you did, with the assistance of their mother, you intended to rape them.”

The judge said he read Jarvis’s messages “with horror.” They showed “cold and clinical” treatment of the children and a willingness to “treat them simply as objects to satisfy your urges.”

Lisa Wilson, representing Jarvis, said he was “at a low ebb” during a “traumatic period” when the offences were committed.

Finding that Jarvis may pose an ongoing risk to children, the judge ordered him to serve at least eight years in custody, with two extra years on licence.

Jarvis will be recorded on our database as a convicted child sex offender following this sentence.