July 2018

10 years in jail for Berkhamsted man

A man who groomed three teenage girls while his wife was being treated for cancer, and had sex with one of them, has been jailed for six years.

Ricardo Dias-Cyrino, 56, met his victims on a mobile phone app site and used the name “Cuddly Daddy”.

He made a wooden box in which he put sex toys, and over which he spanked one girl, St Albans Crown Court heard.

Dias-Cyrino, of Loxley Road, Berkhamsted in Hertfordshire, admitted a number of child sex charges.

As part of the grooming process, Dias-Cyrino set up a fake online account in the name of a girl called Katie who spoke about how enjoyable sex with him was.

He met his first victim, a 16-year-old girl, in Hampshire in mid-2017 and plied with alcohol before taking photographs of her, putting her over a wooden box and spanking her, then having sex with her.

Dias-Cyrino, a carpenter by trade, built the wooden box which he filled with sex toys and clothing and secreted in the back of his work van, the court was told.

He groomed two other girls, both aged 16, who he persuaded to send photographs of themselves, but did not meet with either of them.

He was caught in March after attempting to meet four 13-year-old girls who turned out to be fake profiles set up by a paedophile-hunter group and a law enforcement officer.

Dias-Cyrino admitted two charges of sexual exploitation of a child, four of attempted sexual exploitation of a child, as well as distributing and making indecent images.

He pleaded guilty to:

• Two counts of child sexual exploitation

• Two counts of attempting to meet a child following sexual grooming

• Three counts of attempting to sexually communicate with a child

• One count of attempting to incite a child to engage in sexual activity

• One count of distributing indecent images of a child

• Three counts of making indecent images of a child

Judge Michael Kay QC branded Dias-Cyrino’s behaviour as ‘sordid, disgusting and in some respects extraordinary’, referring to his pre-meditated construction of the wooden box.

He was sentenced to a total of six years in prison and will serve an extended four years on licence after the judge considered him a ‘significant risk’ to the public.

Dias-Cyrino’s name will be on the sex offenders’ register for life and a Sexual Harm Prevention Order was also granted.

One of the terms of the order is that he must use his real name in any interactions online. His phone, laptop and the wooden box have also been forfeited.