April 2021

Holywell sex offender caught out by decoy children during sexual chats

A convicted sex offender from Flintshire has been put behind bars after being duped by ‘decoy children.’

Steven Benjamin Jones, of High Street in Holywell, appeared brought before Mold Crown Court via a video link from HMP Berwyn.

Jones admitted 16 counts of sexual offences – namely that he attempted to communicate with a child in a sexual manner and attempted to have young girls engage in sexual activity.

He was also found to have been distributing and obtaining indecent images of children.

This amounted to a breach of a previously imposed sexual harm prevention order [SHPO] issued by the courts.

At a hearing on April 1, the prosecution, Brian Treadwell, told the court how Jones, 37, was convicted by Mold Crown Court in 2018 for similar sexual offences. This led to him being branded with a SHPO and spending 14 months in prison.

Mr Treadwell said after Jones’ release and during the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, Jones is said to have been approached by a ‘vigilante group’ posing as a child to catch him out as a predator.

The court was told that a profile on a social media application under the pseudonym ‘Tegan’ began messaging Jones and made it clear she was just nine years old.

The conversations started on May 10 with Jones using a fake name and profile picture. He lied about his age, claiming to be 30 and the ‘child’ clarified her age once more and asked if she was ‘too young for him’.

Mr Treadwell said that, to this, Jones replied that her age was ‘perfect’.

Jones asked ‘Tegan’ to keep all their conversations a secret and asked her to send him pictures of her. Jones also sent indecent images of his genitals to what he believed was a child.

He went on to also share videos of pre-teen children involved in sexual videos and asked if ‘Tegan’ liked this.

Another decoy child – reporting to be a 14-year-old girl – was contacted by Jones using the same profile he interacted with ‘Tegan’ through.

The court heard how Jones quickly turned his conversations with this ‘child’ sexual.

He is said to have demanded naked pictures of the girl, and also enquired if she had any younger siblings he could speak with too. After learning from the decoy of a 10-year-old sister, Jones outlined sexual fantasies involving both imaginary girls in detail.

Both ‘girls’ were actually members of a vigilante group exposing predatory behaviour online and gave the messages, images and videos he sent them to North Wales Police for investigation.

Jones was arrested on May 20 at his workplace.

In interview, he admitted to all offences and confessed to having a secret iPhone for several months that he did not inform the police about which went against the terms of his SHPO.

The mobile phone was seized by police and found to contain dozens of indecent images and videos of female children.

Mr Treadwell says that there were 82 in total with the children starting from as old as 16 and the youngest believed to be around three- years -old.

A dive into his internet search history also revealed that he had been looking for images and videos related to child abuse.

This search also revealed he was involved in sharing images of children to others.

Jones was interviewed for a second time by police on October 16 – around five months after his initial arrest where he maintained his guilty admissions and was released on bail with conditions.

However, Jones is said to have made further contact with a decoy child between December 7 and 15.

On another social media platform, an undercover officer posing as a 13-year-old girl reached out to Jones who was using a fake name again.

The decoy – using the name ‘Amy’ – received sexually explicit messages from Jones and made demand for pictures of her body.

Jones was caught after ‘Amy’ was revealed to be an undercover police officer who was able to identify this as Jones by the phone number that was shared on the platform matching their records.

Police arrested Jones again and sized his mobile phone. The application where he approached ‘Amy’ was found on the device along with message chains.

Passing an overall prison sentence of four years, Judge Nicola Jones said she hoped that Jones was serious about his desire to ‘turn his life around’.

She said: “Your offending is clearly escalating and its extremely concerning to us. You have now gone to distributing disturbing images of child abuse to what you thought was a child herself.

“You knew what you were doing was wrong – you asked them to keep the conversations a secret.

“These attempts to engage in sexual activity with children are very serious. Thankfully, these were not real children.”

She added her disbelief that Jones would go through with this activity whilst on bail for committing previous offences of a similar nature.

Judge Jones created a new SHPO that indefinitely banned the 37-year-old from having contact with girls under the age of 16.

She also ordered that all of his devices that were sized containing indecent images should now be destroyed.

March 2021

Queensferry man, 72, sentenced for making indecent images of children

A Queensferry man has been handed a community order after he admitted making indecent images of children.

James Rooke, of Church View, appeared at Mold Crown Court for sentencing on Thursday.

The 72-year-old had previously admitted making two indecent photos and one indecent video at category B, as well as 1097 indecent photos and 59 videos at category C – in addition to possessing of 87 prohibited images of children.

Myles Wilson, prosecuting, said most of the images – which depicted children aged four to 14 – were found on his computer and a hard drive.

Those items were seized at his Queensferry home in July 2019.

Mr Wilson said internet searches had been made using anonymous browsers for images and movies, including for “images of toddlers.”

Those dated back to 2013, he said.

When interviewed by the police, Rooke initially denied the offences and told officers some materials “had popped up.”

Simon Killeen, defending, invited the court to impose a community order.

He said: “It is not unheard of for people, even though they plead guilty, to minimise what they have done and that needs to be challenged.

“If he engages properly then that will happen and there are some seedlings of his resistance starting to ebb away, as the officer in the pre-sentence report alludes to.”

Judge David Hale told Rooke: “You have undoubtedly been looking for child porn – it’s apparent.

“It’s nonsense to say it was unintended. It’s absolute lies.

“The sooner you face up to it, the better.

“At your age I am not in a rush to lock you up.

“It’s going to be a community order but if you break that order, you leave the court little option.”

Rooke received a two year community order with a 60 day rehabilitation activity requirement.

He was also made the subject of a sexual harm prevention order and must pay a victim surcharge of £95.

February 2021

Flintshire man jailed for breaching sexual harm prevention order

A Flintshire man breached his sexual harm prevention order by deleting his internet history after watching pornography, a court heard.

Jacob Paul Butler, of Coast Road in Mostyn, appeared at Caernarfon Crown Court on Thursday for sentencing.