March 2017

Pervert, 41, who tried to blame his seven-year-old SON after he was caught by paedophile hunters sending explicit pictures to a girl, 14, is SPARED jail 

A pervert who tried to blame his seven-year-old son for sending an explicit pictures to a teenage girl has walked free from court.

Christopher Hartfield, 41, attempted to blame his young son when he was accosted by a vigilante group outside a train station.

He had made contact with a person he thought was a 14-year-old girl called Hayley on social media.

He sent her explicit pictures of himself and encouraged her to perform sex acts before arranging to meet.

But, unknown to him, he had really been chatting with a grown man who was pretending to be the girl.

And when he turned up at Hove train station in East Sussex he was confronted by the self-styled paedophile hunters.

Hartfield tried to claim his young son could have contacted the girl as he suffered from ADHD and often got hold of his mobile phone.

A video shows Hartfield claiming: ‘Yeah but my son even plays with my phone.’

The group, which runs a website called The Hunted One, then subjected Hartfield to a 10-minute grilling.

He also said the website made him think the girl was 18, despite the group showing him a message in which they said she was 14.

At Brighton Crown Court, Hartfield from Sharpethorne, West Sussex pleaded guilty to inciting a girl between the ages of 13-15 to engage in sex and grooming the girl.

But he walked free from court after being handed an 18-month prison sentence suspended for two years.

The vigilante group posted explaining why they carry out their projects.

They said: ‘Our decoy spent six weeks chatting. The things he said were just vile and he is a very twisted man.

‘While his girlfriend was at work he thought he could bring the decoy back to the house and said you must leave by 5pm.

‘He even went to lengths to try and blame his seven-year-old old child for chatting to the decoy.

‘We can not express enough how much anger we have towards these [people] when we challenge them, especially when they continue to deny and manipulate the situation, in spite of the evidence.’

February 2017

Paedophile blames his seven-year-old son for dirty messages

This is the moment a gang of vigilante paedophile hunters confronted a man suspected of grooming an underage girl.

Christopher Hartfield, 41, was accosted by the group who outside a train station over his plans to meet a 14-year-old girl.

But after being confronted about the messages he had been sending, he attempted to blame it on his seven-year-old son.

In the clip, he tells the vigilantes that his son often gets hold of his phone which would explain some of the texts that had been sent from his number.

He made contact with the ‘girl’ on social media and had been chatting with her online for weeks.

He even sent explicit pictures of himself before arranging to meet her while his wife and young son were out.

But unknown to him he had really been chatting with a grown man pretending to be a teenage girl.

And when he turned up at Hove train station in East Sussex he was confronted by self-styled paedophile hunters.

The group, which runs a website called The Hunted One, then subjected Hartfield to a 10-minute grilling.

In it they accused him of contacting the girl and grooming her before arranging to meet her for sex.

The group, which one of a handful of vigilantes which have apprehended dozens of men who were later convicted of child sex offences, then took their evidence to the police.

Detectives in Sussex examined the evidence and Hartfield was later charged with two child sex offences.

On Thursday Hartfield, of Sharpethorne, West Sussex appeared at Brighton Crown Court where he pleaded guilty to inciting a girl between the ages of 13-15 to engage in sex and grooming the girl.

He will be sentenced next month. The vigilante group later posted explaining why they carry out their projects.

They said: “Our decoy spent six weeks chatting. The things he said were just vile and he is a very twisted man.

“While his girlfriend was at work he thought he could bring the decoy back to the house and said you must leave by 5pm.

“He even went to lengths to try and blame his seven-year-old old child for chatting to the decoy. “

“We can not express enough how much anger we have towards these [people] when we challenge them, especially when they continue to deny and manipulate the situation, in spite of the evidence.

“We, as a team, have to maintain a level of self control, as violence towards them would not resolve the bigger issue.

“When they are standing in a dock, we want the harshest sentences without the added complications of them making ABH or GBH allegations, we need to set an example to all our children”

“We will not be silenced and will continue to a wider audience as possible, to make more people aware of the areas that they live in.”