January 2007

Internet sex predator jailed for grooming ‘schoolgirl’

An internet sex predator who arranged to meet a 12-year-old schoolgirl for a night of illicit passion has been jailed for a minimum of two and a half years.

Timothy Cornford had spent weeks bombarding her with a string of pornographic pictures and lurid emails, telling her how she would be his “special little girl and porn model”.

Hiding behind the sick alias “family love”, the unemployed computer engineer described his incestuous fantasies in graphic detail.

London’s Southwark Crown Court was told he left the pre-teen in no doubt what he wanted to do with her and begged her to spend the night at his one-bedroom flat where he had an array of sado masochistic and bondage equipment, including whips, a dog collar and lead and nipple clamps.

Eventually the bachelor arranged to meet the youngster in a south London park last September.

But when he arrived he discovered the schoolgirl was really an undercover policeman whose colleagues arrested him on the spot.

When officers searched his home in Croham Road, Croydon, south London, they found nearly 100 child porn images on his computer.

The 39-year-old, who used to live in Bristol, pleaded guilty to trying to meet a child after sexual grooming on the internet, attempting to cause her to watch sexual acts, and making indecent photographs of an under-age youngster.

The self-confessed “pervert”, who had previously been jailed for possessing 20,000 child porn images – including children as young as nine months – and possessing obscene articles for gain, remained impassive as Judge James Wadsworth QC told him he clearly posed a “significant risk of serious harm” to children.

“I have been told the conversations you were having in chat rooms was fantasy and that may well be right.

“But it is fantasy I have to consider against a background of what has been called ‘paraphernalia’ in your home, against a background of assertions you made to what you believed was a 12-year-old girl, against the background of your previous conviction and, most importantly against the fact you attended what you believed was to be a meeting with a girl you had very plainly told was for sexual purposes.”

The judge said all that, together with the fact his obsession with child sex was growing worse, meant he had no option but impose an indefinite prison sentence for public protection and would have to serve a minimum two and a half years before being considered for parole.