A convicted paedophile aged 50 years has been put behind bars for two years and eight months (32 months) following a darkweb sting where he had revealed to an undercover police officer of his desire to perform depraved sex acts on two young girls.
The accused had been identified as Simon Martin in the darkweb sting operation where the police officer had pretended to be a mother of two girl children aged 12 and 8 years. The Bradford Crown Court has heard this information.
The accused had exchanged several messages with the disguised cop in an internet chatroom. He had introduced and called himself a “genuine UK perv”. In the conversation, he had also mentioned that there is “no age limit whatsoever”.
The accused is currently in the Leeds Prison, and he was formerly in the Brookfoot Lane of Brighouse. He was convicted in a breach of a Sexual Harm Prevention Order that had been made at the Bolton Crown Court in January 2013. Then he had attempted to arrange the commission of child sexual abuse offence. He had an earlier conviction for making indecent children images as well.
The prosecutor named David McGonigal stated that the recent offences occurred back in June and July this year when the accused started exchanging private messages with the fictitious mother “Abby”. The latter had pretended to have two daughters aged eight and twelve years, respectively. The undercover agent who then had been posing as Abby under the darkweb sting had discussed a meeting at a hotel with the accused. The meeting was fixed with an intention that Martin could sexually abuse Abby’s daughters.
Martin had told the officer posing as “Abby” that his wife is unaware of his interest in paedophilia and that he earlier had sex with a teen girl aged 14 years. Moreover, he had asked for photos of the 12-year-old girl. He had also offered to buy the girl lingerie and had also forwarded an image of his genital for the girl to look at.
The last communication between the undercover police agent and the accused took place back on the 6th of July, as McGonigal states.
Martin was arrested ten days later, and the police were successful in seizing his computer. His computer bore indecent images of children in considerable volumes in Categories A, B and C.
- Category A: 1092 images
- Category B: 1335 images
- Category C: 1466
The accused had used a unique browser to be online, anonymous and access the dark web.
Martin has pleaded guilty to two counts of attempting to arrange a meeting with a child for sexual activity. Additionally, he has received counts for two breaches of the Sexual Harm Prevention Order and three counts for possession of indecent children images.
Andrew Peterson, Martin’s barrister, had said that both the mother and girls under darkweb sting were fictitious and that there was no risk of harm to any of the “so called” victims. He abstained from his behavior prior to the police’s entry to arrest him.
Since July, the accused had been in custody while there was a lockdown due to Covid-19.
Colin Burn, the judge had said that the previous court orders had failed to cover up the child sex offending of the accused.
Owing to the “matter of significant concern”, the police had not arrested the accused sooner. This was due to the fact that his offending was allowed to continue for a couple of weeks more with the knowledge, the instigation and encouragement to the police officer.
Source: The Telegraph
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