Category Archives: Social Network/Internet Predators

Samuel McLachlan – Burnley

13 Wednesday Jun 2018

Posted by in Lancashire, Police sting, Social Network/Internet Predators

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July 2018

Burnley pervert wanted ‘teen boy’ to wear a skirt

A sex offender who messaged a ‘13-year-old boy’ asking him to meet him at a public toilet and wear a skirt has been jailed.

But Burnley Crown Court heard how 30-year-old Samuel McLachlan had actually been messaging an undercover officer who had set up a fake Facebook account and posed as the teenager after concerns were raised about the defendant’s ‘deviant sexual interest in young boys’.

There was also concern about McLachlan’s lack of engagement with the police’s sex offender’s management unit and the probation service.

Prosecuting Stephen Parker said McLachlan had accepted the friend request from ‘Ross’ he on June 24 and the following day he sent him a message asking: “Do you have a girlfriend? Are you gay, bi or straight?”

Ross responded by saying he was 13 to which McLachlan replied by saying he was 16 and bisexual but preferred boys. McLachlan then asked Ross if he was circumcised, sent him an explicit photograph and asked the teenager to ‘trade’ one of his own.

After being questioned about his age and then claiming to be 20, McLachlan said: “Do you cross dress? Do you like to wear a skirt? Can we meet up at some point in some public toilets? I could get you to wear a skirt.”

After Ross said he couldn’t send McLachlan a photo because he was ‘unable to get access to his mum’s phone’ the defendant again asked if they could meet up but this time at a swimming pool.

When Ross asked how he would recognise McLachlan the defendant said he could be identified by the explicit photograph he had sent him.

McLachlan then asked Ross if he watched pornography and said they should communicate over live video chat on Skype. In order to avoid himself being exposed, the officer made an excuse about how his mother had disabled the camera on his computer. McLachlan later sent him a link to a website which would allow Ross to change the settings.

The court heard how McLachlan, of Low Bank, Burnley, sent Ross a live video link where the defendant was semi-naked in a garage and performing an explicit act.

During a later conversation McLachlan told Ross he had to be ‘careful because of the age difference’ and said he could be accused of grooming him.

He continued: “I have to be careful. It happened to a friend who was placed on the sex offenders register.”

When challenged about his age again McLachlan claimed he was 28 and Ross again reaffirmed that he was 13.

On June 26, the pair were due to meet up in Preston but McLachlan, who runs a grass cutting and lawnmower repair business, claimed he was unable to because of work commitments.

But later that day he sent Ross another explicit live video link and asked for a naked photograph of the teenager.

McLachlan was arrested and initially answered no comment to questions.

He later said that he needed help and claimed that the only reason he had wanted to live chat with Ross is so he could work out how old he really was. He also said that he was never going to meet up with Ross because he had ‘gotten cold feet’.

The court heard that when police searched McLachlan’s bedroom they had found school uniforms but the defendant claimed he bought them to dress up himself.

McLachlan pleaded guilty to attempting to engage in sexual activity with a child, attempting to meet a boy under 16 following grooming, causing a child age 13 to to look at an image of sexual activity, two counts of attempting to cause a child to engage in sexual activity of a non-penetrative nature and three counts of attempting to engage in sexual activity in the presence of a child under 16.

Describing McLachlan as posing a ‘high risk of serious harm to children’, Judge Philip Parry jailed him for 16 months. He was also made subject of a 10-year sexual harm prevention order and told to sign the sex offenders register for the same period.

June 2018

Burnley web pervert exposed himself to ‘boy, 13’

A man who thought he was conversing via the internet with a 13-year-old child was actually in contact with the police.

Blackburn magistrates heard Samuel McLachlan attempted to engage in sexual communication with the child and attempted to arrange a meeting with the boy.

McLachlan, 30, of Low Bank, Burnley, pleaded guilty to eight charges involving internet grooming and sexual activity. He was committed in custody to Burnley Crown Court to be sentenced.

Beth Pilling, prosecuting, said it was not the first time McLachlan had committed similar offences.

“In this case he thought he was communicating with a 13-year-old boy but it was in fact the police,” said Miss Pilling. “He exposed himself and asked the boy to remove the shots.

“Clearly he was aware he was doing wrong.”

Steven Price – Uley

10 Sunday Jun 2018

Posted by in Gloucestershire, Social Network/Internet Predators

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June 2018

Undercover police snare paedophile

A police undercover sting snared a 62-year-old man who travelled 100 miles from his home to have sex with what he thought was a 12-year-old girl in Torquay.

Businessman Steven Price boasted online that he wanted to give the girl her ‘first orgasm’ and he arrived at a pub car park with a condom in his pocket.

But he was arrested at the scene by police who told him the girl was really a decoy set up by them to catch people like him.

The court was told he had been caught by a similar decoy sting in 2017 involving an 11-year-old.

He was jailed for 15 months by a judge at Exeter Crown Court.

The court was told Price spent 40 days grooming a ‘girl’ called Maddy.

Prosecutor Mr Paul Grumbar said Price had chatted on the site Lycos.

He sent a series of sexually explicit messages saying he wanted to have full sex with the girl and encouraging her to touch herself.

The pervert then arranged to meet her at the Willow Tree pub near Sainsbury’s on March 14 this year.

He travelled down from his home in Gloucestershire. When police found the condom he said he always carried one.

Price, of Elcombe Lane, Uley, near Dursley, admitted attempting to engage in a sexual conversation with a child, attempting to meet a child under 13 for the purpose of sexual activity and attempting to meet a child following grooming.

He asked for a further offence of sexual communication to be considered.

He was jailed for 15 months by Recorder Mr Martin Meeke, QC, ordered to sign on the sex offenders register for ten years given a Sexual Harm Prevention Order restricting hios contact with children.

Recorder Meeke said: “You left your home in Gloucestershire having arranged to meet her in Torquay. On your arrival you were arrested and had a condom in your pocket. That was at a time when you expected to meet a 12-year-old girl.

“The evidence suggests you have an unnatural interest in girls aged 11 and 12.”

Philip Dowling – Darlington

06 Wednesday Jun 2018

Posted by in Durham, Social Network/Internet Predators

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January 2018

Pervert who used paedophiles’ chat room tried to arrange child rape

A pervert who tried to arrange the rape of a child after using an online chat room for paedophiles is starting a prison sentence.

Former jewellers’ manager Phillip Dowling, 67, spent months trying to set up the abuse of an internet correspondent’s daughter in a catalogue of sickening chats.

He thought he was talking to a paedophile who would offer up his daughter to be abused, Teesside Crown Court heard yesterday.

In fact, he was sending messages to an undercover police officer.

Prosecutor Richard Bennett said Dowling had used a website to communicate with other paedophiles.

He began talking to an officer who was monitoring the site using the pseudonym “Martin”.

Dowling claimed he had abused underage girls – which he later said was “lies and online bravado” – and sent six indecent pictures to Martin, purportedly of one of the victims.

He sent a picture of himself to the officer, identifying himself as a bisexual from Middlesbrough.

When conversation turned to Martin’s fictitious 11-year-old daughter, Dowling asked if he had shared her with anyone.

He discussed meeting and staying with Martin, sexual activity with his daughter, bringing her gifts and even introducing him as a “long lost relative”.

Dowling made graphic comments about what he wanted to do to her during the communications between May and August 2016.

He said he could not understand people’s attitudes to underage sex and “loved summer because there were so many girls coming out”.

His Middlesbrough home was searched in January last year and 80 indecent images of children found on a USB stick, one on a laptop.

Dowling confessed to police he had a “fascination” with sex involving children.

He said he had amassed a collection of child abuse images over 10 years and visited chat rooms where such pictures were shared, using several usernames.

Dowling admitted making and distributing indecent images of children, arranging or facilitating a child sex offence and possessing a paedophile manual – not a literal manual but arising from the online chats.

Damian Sabino, defending, said: “Thankfully in this scenario no child could have been harmed.

“It was a sting operation. The child did not exist.

“He told the police he would never have been able to go through with anything, that it was all fantasy.

“Visual contact with the undercover officer was a step too far.”

He said Dowling lied about abusing girls and the images he sent were “random pictures from the internet”.

He told how Dowling, who had no previous convictions, originally sought solace in adult pornography and “became desensitised” to it amid an ailing relationship, ill health and erectile dysfunction.

Now he had been “shockingly frank” and honest with probation, was willing to accept help and came to court with references.

Judge Howard Crowson said Dowling had a distorted and abhorrent view of children.

Referring to the bogus girl, he said: “What you were arranging was the rape of a child under 13.

“It’s clear you had an interest in having sexual intercourse with her and a great deal more.

“It could not have taken place because no such 11-year-old existed.

“You pose a real threat to children by acts you would seek to carry out and by your encouragement of others.

“The fact is, every time an indecent image of a child is viewed, it violates the child again.

“They never truly can be eradicated. They are out there in electronic form.

“Your interest in viewing these types of images simply fuels the demand.

“It encourages those who create these images and thus more children are abused.

“Matrimonial breakdown and job insecurity cannot cause a man to behave in the way you have.”

Dowling, latterly of Lowson Street, Darlington, was jailed for four years and 10 months.

He was given a sexual harm prevention order governing his contact with under-16s and internet use, and will be on the sex offenders’ register, both for life.

David Franklin – Fordingbridge

02 Saturday Jun 2018

Posted by in Hampshire, Social Network/Internet Predators

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June 2018

Pervert threatened girl, 14, to make her send indecent photos

A man who used threats to get a 14-year-old Salisbury girl to send him indecent pictures of herself has been spared jail.

David Franklin, 20, contacted the youngster, who knew him from the local area, on Facebook and struck up an online friendship with her.

But the messages soon became sinister as he told her he would harm her sister if she did not do as he told her.

Rob Welling, prosecuting, told Swindon Crown Court Franklin, of Fordingbridge, first made contact on Facebook and then via WhatsApp, and that he started to make requests that the child was uncomfortable with, he said, and then became menacing

“He asked her to send him a photograph of her breasts under threat that he would hurt her family, her sister, even perhaps himself. She complied with that,” he said. “A second request, to send him a picture of her vagina, she declined. I suspect it was that that caused her to raise the alarm bells with her friend.”

Mr Welling said police were informed after the girl told her friend about the pictures.

When Franklin was arrested his phone was seized but he was unhelpful and would not grant police access to the device, which officers are still working on.

He admitted two counts of causing or inciting a child to engage in sexual activity.

Passing a three year community order Judge Robert Pawson said “What you did was very serious.

“You had committed two sexual offences where you caused a child who was only 14 years of age to perform a sexual act.

“That included taking a photograph of themselves. Even with the difficulties you have Mr Franklin you should have known better.”

He must also abide by a three-month curfew with rehabilitation activity and register as a sex offender.

But after hearing the 20-year-old had a number of issues and there was a prospect of him being rehabilitated in the community he imposed a community order.

Jay Lamb – Darlington

28 Monday May 2018

Posted by in Durham, Social Network/Internet Predators

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May 2018

Darlington sex offender given extended sentence for public protection

A convicted sex offender has been given an extended sentence for public protection after a judge told him: “You are an obvious and serious risk.”

Online predator Jay Lamb asked schoolgirls for “naughty pictures” and encouraged one to touch herself while he sent photographs of his penis along with his phone number and email address.

The 30-year-old had been given a suspended prison sentence in 2005 for causing or inciting a child to engage in sexual activity, and was jailed for four years in 2010 attempted intercourse with a girl under 13.

He had finished his post-release supervision in the middle of 2016, but by early this year, he was again grooming youngsters on the Kik messaging service, Teesside Crown Court heard.

Lamb, of Thompson Road West, Darlington, also had indecent images of children as young as seven on his mobile phone when he was arrested in March.

Jailing him for five years and three months, with an extended two years on licence recall, Recorder Simon Jackson, QC, told him: “You have an ongoing interest in pre-teen children, and you are considered to be a high risk of further sexual behaviour.

“The risk of serious harm you present to children cannot be safely managed within the community. You fall to be categorised as a dangerous offender. You present as an obvious and serious risk of causing serious sexual harm to young children.”

Mr Recorder Jackson said Lamb minimised his crimes during an interview with a probation officer, and rejected his claims that he used the social networking site initially to meet adults 

Lamb admitted charges of attempting to engage in sexual communication with a child, attempting to incite a child to engage in sexual activity, making indecent images and attempting to cause a child to watch a sexual act.