November 2020

Hartlepool man spared jail after being caught by internet paedophile hunters

An internet pervert caught in a sting speaking to what he thought was a 12-year-old girl has been put on the Sex Offenders Register for 10 years.

Craig Peloe, 36 of Chesterton Road, Hartlepool engaged in sexually explicit talk with the girl in an online dating site that was actually a decoy called Deecoyy Jenni from a paedophile hunting group called Incognito.

He began speaking to the decoy on the messaging app WhatsApp.

Teesside Crown Court heard the ‘girl’ repeatedly said she was 12.

Robin Turton, prosecuting, said: “The defendant initially claims he’s 17. Despite the decoy’s age having been given as 12 the conversation soon moves on to sexual matters.

“He describes variously what he would like to do with [the decoy].”

Peloe later claimed he had tried to take his own life and offered to break off contact because of his age admitting he was 36.

But the prosecution said he was emotionally manipulating the decoy as police discovered ‘strikingly similar’ talk on WhatsApp with an apparent 13-year-old girl on his mobile phone.

Peloe, now 38, returned to sexual talk soon after with the decoy and encouraged her to commit a sex act.

He was arrested on April 20 and later pleaded guilty to attempting to cause or incite a girl under 13 to engage in sexual activity.

Judge Deborah Sherwin sentenced him to two years prison suspended for two years and ordered him to take a sex offender treatment programme.