June 2016

Facebook pervert snared after officer posed as schoolgirl in undercover online operation

An internet pervert was snared when an undercover Cleveland Police officer posed as a schoolgirl online.

Bahman Albet, 30, bombarded three vulnerable schoolchildren with “overt and extreme sexual messages”, Teesside Crown Court heard.

He adopted a false identity with the fake name Tony Mantana to contact youngsters onFacebook and other social media.

He was caught when a officer started communicating with Albet claiming she was 15.

Innocent conversation descended into a deluge of sexual messages within a day, the court was told yesterday.

Albet sent images of his genitals, offered her money for sex acts and persistently offered to book a hotel for them to have sex, said prosecutor Jo Kidd.

The full extent of Albet’s sordid activities was laid bare on his iPhone when he was arrested.

It revealed similar sexual online conversations with two girls and one boy, all underage.

His twisted fantasies included involving the children’s parents in sexual activity.

When his victims did not respond as he liked, he became aggressive and intimidating.

He persistently requested pictures from one 15-year-old girl. She sent him a photo of her breasts and he distributed it to others.

When she did not comply with his requests, he threatened to send the image to her friends and family and damage her home.

He invited a 13-year-old girl to come to London to meet and have sex with him in a hotel.

He suggested sex to a 13-year-old boy who had already been the victim of online grooming.

He had 21 indecent images of boys and girls aged 12 to 15 on the phone.

Albet admitted 13 offences from October to December last year.

They were causing a child to engage in sexual activity and attempting to do so, causing a child to watch sexual activity and attempting to do so, causing or inciting child exploitation, attempting to arrange or facilitate a child sex offence, possessing an extreme pornographic image, making indecent photographs of children, distributing an indecent photograph of a child and harassment.

Andrew Coleman, defending, said Albet never met the victims and never intended to.

He said Albet showed remorse and shame for his behaviour over a short period of time.

He said: “During the time of this offending his world was effectively in a haze.

“He was suffering from a form of adjustment disorder. He was embroiled in an addiction to amphetamine and alcohol.

“He did lose touch with reality.”

He said Albet had been an asylum seeker from Iran, was granted indefinite leave to remain and started a family in the UK.

Judge Tony Briggs told Albet, formerly from Blackburn in Lancashire, now of no fixed address, that prison was inevitable but accepted his remorse was genuine.

Albet was jailed for two years and four months, given an indefinite sexual harm prevention order banning him from contact with under-16s and governing internet and social media use.

He will be on the sex offenders’ register for 10 years.

He denied a charge of possessing a “paedophile manual” which was left to lie on the court file.