Farm worker sent sex messages to ’12-year-old girl’

A farm worker sent a series of ‘highly-sexualised’ Facebook messages to a person he thought was a 12-year-old girl, Swansea Crown Court was told.

But 22-year-old Rhys David James George, from Crymych, Pembrokeshire, was actually talking to an adult who had set up the ‘decoy’ social media account to try and ensnare paedophiles.

George, of Bwlchygroes, Pembrokeshire, who had previously pleaded guilty to:

  • Attempting to incident a child under 13 to engage in sexual activity,

  • Attempting to cause a child under 13 to watch a sexual act, 

  • Attempting to engage in sexual communication with a child under 13,

He was jailed for 28 months after recorder Ifan Wyn Lloyd Jones gave him a one-third discount for his guilty pleas.

Mr Jones told George he should be ‘thoroughly ashamed’ of his actions, and of the shame he had brought upon his family.

He added he had no doubt that the offending was so serious that only a term of immediate imprisonment was appropriate.

George was said to have contacted a Facebook profile purporting to be that of a 12-year-old girl, named as ‘Kayleigh,’ on September 28, 2019.

Prosecutor Craig Jones said that even though ‘Kayleigh’ made her age clear to the defendant there was a ‘sexualised theme’ to much of their conversation.

George made offensive suggestions of a sexual nature of his intent to the girl, and then described in detail the sexual acts he wanted to perform on her and what he wanted her to do to him.

The pair also discussed meeting and George sent the decoy videos of himself engaged in a sex act.

The conversations ended on October 15 when members of a so-called paedophile hunter group confronted George, who had no previous convictions.

George will serve up to half his sentence in custody before being released on licence under the UK government’s early release scheme, to serve the remainder in the community.

He was also made the subject of a sexual harm prevention order for the next 10 years, and will be a registered sex offender for the same length of time.