A PERVERT who thought he was grooming a 14-year-old girl over the internet has been jailed.
At Southwark Crown Court on July 25, Steven Russell McCarthy was sentenced to two-and-a-half years for attempting to meet a child following sexual grooming.
McCarthy, of Cowden Road, Orpington, was also given 12 months, to run concurrently, for attempting to cause a child to look at an image of sexual activity.
He had pleaded guilty to the offences.
He was put on the Sex Offenders’ Register for 10 years and banned from working with children for life.
The 41-year-old came to the attention of police on April 16 when he made an online approach to someone he thought was a 14-year-old girl, but was actually a Met covert internet investigator.
In online and text chat McCarthy, using the profile steve55mac, sent sexually explicit messages and an explicit photograph of himself.
He also tried to persuade the ‘girl’ to bunk off school and meet him while her mum was out.
When the ‘girl’ agreed to meet McCarthy at a central London train station on June 22, officers were waiting and arrested him.
McCarthy had 12 condoms, eight Bacardi Breezers and a digital camera with him.
During a search of his home, officers seized three computer tower PCs, CDs and two digital cameras.
Forensic examination of the computers found nine indecent images of girls aged from 14 to 16.
Det Sergeant Nick Duffield from the Met’s child abuse investigation command said: “This type of criminal activity is being monitored and enforced by covert police officers who identify those responsible. We take any such behaviour extremely seriously.”
