July 2009

Chat room paedophile boasts of abusing girl

Stuart Cook, aged 59, boasted about the abuse in a paedophile chat room – unaware he was actually talking to an undercover police officer, Sheffield Crown Court heard.

Jurors took just an hour and 15 minutes to find Cook, of Grange Road, Beighton, Sheffield, guilty of one specimen count of indecent assault in relation to the abuse which took place 30 years ago.

Elisabeth Martin, prosecuting, said Cook abused the girl over a 17-month period from April 1978 to August 1979.

The victim, now in her mid-30s, told jurors she hadn’t confided in anyone about the abuse but regularly suffered nightmares.

The court heard the abuse came to light three decades later, after Cook took part unwittingly in online chats with an undercover police officer about abusing children.

During the conversations he told the officer he was ‘into grannies’ but had also previously abused a young girl.

Asked by the officer: “How old, when you started?”

Cook replied: “Seven or eight.”He was arrested at his home by officers from South Yorkshire Police’s public protection unit.

Cook also admitted downloading more than 4,000 indecent images.Around half of them – 1,882 – were of children being sexually abused, while the rest were of adult porn and bestiality.

Robert Smith, defending Cook, described the material as ‘disgusting and repulsive’.He said the assertions Cook made online in the chat room were ‘stupid statements made in the course of a fictitious fantasy land’