Category Archives: Warwickshire

Stephen Lidzy – Wellesbourne

21 Sunday Mar 2021

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March 2021

Man jailed after giving 14-year-old girl cocaine and having sex with her

A Wellesbourne man who had sex with a 14-year-old girl after earlier grooming her and plying her with cocaine has been jailed.

Stephen Lidzy denied supplying the drug, sexual activity with a child and inciting her to engage in sexual activity – but was found guilty after a trial at Coventry Crown Court.

The 28-year-old was jailed for six years and eight months and ordered to register as a sex offender for life.

Prosecutor Peter Cooper said Lidzy got to know the girl in early 2018 when he used to hang out at a flat in Leamington which she would also visit with friends.

Lidzy was older than most of the people there and when he asked her how old she was, she told him she was 14.

He began contacting her on Snapchat and “either was or pretended to be supportive of her” over problems she had which had led to her self-harming.

“There was an occasion when she and a friend went with him for a drive in his car. Nothing untoward happened, but you may think that was something of a grooming process,” said Mr Cooper.

On one day the girl messaged Lidzy, of Newbold Place, Wellesbourne, while she was at school, and he responded with messages of support.

After finishing school, she went home and, after getting changed, went into Leamington where she had a call from Lidzy at around 5.40pm asking to meet her.

He told her he wanted to talk to her about what she was going through, and he turned up in his car while she was with a friend outside a fast food take-away in Bath Street.

The two girls got into the car and he drove them to a shop near the fire station where, as they sat in the car, he offered them a line of cocaine.

Mr Copper said: “Her friend refused, but she did sniff a line of cocaine, as did the defendant, and he then took them back to where he had picked them up, and dropped them off.”

Later in the evening the girls were drinking with friends on the Newbold Comyn when there was further phone contact between her and Lidzy who asked if she could meet him for half an hour.

“She was happy to meet him and told [her friend] Steve wanted to meet her again, so they parted, and she met him by the bandstand in a park,” explained the prosecutor.

“He drove her to a park with bushes, she though it was Victoria Park in Leamington, although she later thought it might have been St Nicholas Park in Warwick.

“The defendant parked his car and turned the engine off and they chatted, and he asked if he could have a hug.

“As they did, he put his hand on her bum and squeezed it, and then put his hand down the front of her jeans.”

It was alleged that he pushed her head down and got her to perform oral sex on him – but the jury was unable to reach a verdict on a charge in relation to that.

“He then climbed over to the passenger side and reclined her seat and pulled her left leg out of her jeans and had intercourse with her,” said Mr Cooper.

Afterwards the both adjusted their clothing, and Lidzy had another line of cocaine before taking her home.

The girl later told an older cousin about what had happened, and after the cousin discussed it with family members it was decided the police should be informed.

When the police interviewed the girl she revealed that after the events in the car, Lidzy had sent her a ‘d*** pic’ and had encouraged her to send him naked photos, added Mr Cooper.

He accepted he had met the girl at the flat, but said he knew her to be 14, so was careful about communicating with her and only did so when his girlfriend was with him.

At first he claimed he had seen the girl and her friend, but that they did not get in the car – but then admitted taking them to the shop, although he denied giving her cocaine.

And he said he spent the rest of the evening at home with his girlfriend, and did not see the girl again that evening.

It was later found that his girlfriend had sent a text trying to contact him, and he then accepted spending time with the girl in his car, but maintained there was no sexual activity.

Arthur Stokes – Southam

18 Thursday Mar 2021

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March 2021

Southam man jailed for trying to persuade a 14-year-old to take part in sexual activity

A man who had been shunned by his family since abusing children when he was in his 20s has been jailed after trying to persuade a 14-year-old to take part in sexual activity

Fortunately this time Arthur Stokes’s potential victim did not actually exist, a judge at Warwick Crown Court has heard.

Stokes (58), of Southam, pleaded guilty to attempting to incite a child to engage in sexual activity and two charges of attempted sexual communication with a child.

He was jailed for two-and-a-half years and ordered to register as a sex offender for life.

Prosecutor Suki Dhadda said that in January 2019 Stokes accessed an online dating site on which he made contact with two decoys using the names Lara and Sarah.

Despite being told that Lara was 13 and Sarah was 14, he continued to send them graphic messages and photos and asked to meet them for sex.

Stokes sent Sarah several explicit messages, and said he would travel to Leeds to meet her.

The police were informed by the people behind the decoy girls, and when Stokes was arrested the police found searches for Leeds B&Bs on his phone.

Miss Dhadda said: “Interviewed, he presented as having learning difficulties and had difficulty with reading and writing, but Your Honour will have seen the text messages he exchanged.”

Stokes, who had been convicted twice in the 1980s for indecently assaulting children, said he thought it was an over-18s dating site, and when told their ages he thought they were ‘joking around’ and that it was roleplay.

Simon Hunka, defending, said that in fact Stokes cannot read or write, and had used an app which turns what he says into a text, and the texts he receives into spoke words.

He said Stokes, who had an extremely low IQ, led ‘a sad existence,’ with his family having turned their backs on him after his early offences, and it was ‘a source of sadness that he was never reconciled with his siblings before they died.’

Mr Hunka added that Stokes, who accepts he has a problem, lived ‘an isolated existence,’ spending every day watching TV on his own apart from going to the shops early in the day to avoid meeting people.

Jailing Stokes, Recorder Jacob Hallam QC told him: “I have to sentence you for offences which you believed involved you making contact with girls at the beginning of their teenage years.

“Your contact has been described as engaging them in highly sexualised language.

“Even though you find the written word beyond your understanding, you were able to overcome those problems to send messages of an overtly sexual nature.

“What you were seeking was actual sexual contact with people you believed to be teenage girls.

“Thankfully it was offending which did not in fact involve the corruption and sexualisation of young children.”

Thomas Ball – Atherstone

18 Thursday Mar 2021

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March 2021

Pervert teacher at York boarding school used sick hidden camera to spy on naked pupil showering

A pervert teacher at a top Yorkshire boarding school used a spy camera to take video footage of a pupil showering, before trying to pin the blame on his colleagues.

Thomas David Ball, 30, also downloaded vile images from the internet of young children being raped, bound and tortured.

Ball, who was a senior housemaster at Queen Ethelburga’s, a fee-paying school in Thorpe Underwood, near York, became “infatuated” with a teenage pupil.

York Crown Court heard Ball “hunted” for social media snaps of the victim and made 29 separate Google searches for the boy about a month before the spycam incident.

Prosecutor Paul Newcombe said Ball had installed the camera, which he bought on Amazon, in a bathroom at the fee-paying day-and-boarding school.

The boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, had just returned from registration when Ball asked him to take a shower.

While showering, the boy noticed wires beneath the sink which were connected to a spy camera whose lights were on to show it was active.

Mr Newcombe said the boy trusted Ball enough to hand him the camera.

He told the court Ball then took it away adding: “No doubt to dispose of the 15-minute video footage.”

The boy became suspicious and told his mother and Ball later admitted to the school’s deputy safeguarding leader that he had made a “stupid mistake”.

Ball – who had just been promoted to a role monitoring pupils’ wellbeing – handed the camera to a staff member.

The school reported the matter to police but before officers arrived, Ball went to his room, telling staff he was going to “retrieve something”.

Mr Newcombe told the court he was in fact trying to “conceal evidence” by hiding a second spy camera, a tablet and a memory stick in his car boot.

On the tablet were a cache of sickening images of children, including videos showing the rape and torture of young children.

Police found Ball’s fingerprints on the spy camera’s memory card and on the device itself, the court heard.

Despite this, he denied he was behind the covert footage of the naked boy and tried to blame other staff members.

Mr Newcombe said other members of staff had to be interviewed and questioned which caused great “stress and upset and disruption to the school”.

Police forensic officers examined Ball’s devices and found he had been searching for spy cameras on the internet.

Mr Newcombe added: “The defendant purchased two spy cameras and an SD card in May 2018 from Amazon. The cameras came with night vision.”

Police discovered the footage and recovered a laptop and hard drive from Ball’s room containing a stash of indecent images of children which had been downloaded using “peer-to-peer” file-sharing software.

Mr Newcombe added: “The images mainly involved boys as young as 10 being sexually abused.”

There were 168 such images ranging in seriousness from Category A – the worst kind of such material – to Category C, including both photos and videos.

Ball had also downloaded over 20 prohibited or cartoon images, including photos and videos of young boys being bound, raped and tortured.

The images included a video of a child between two and five years’ old being raped.

Ball admitted three counts of making indecent images of children and downloading prohibited images.

He had initially denied taking covert video footage of the boy, installing the camera and voyeurism at the school in the summer of 2018, the court heard.

But he changed his pleas to guilty about a month before a trial was due to take place.

Judge Simon Hickey told Ball his offences against the “vulnerable” boy were a “gross breach of trust”, adding: “Parents expect their children to be looked after and not spied upon and filmed.”

Citing Ball’s “29 separate searches” for images of the boy on social media, the judge said the voyeurism offences involved “significant planning and determination”.

Ball, of Over Road, Atherstone, Warwickshire, who admitted charges of voyeurism and making indecent images of children, was jailed for 20 months, of which he will serve half behind bars before being released on licence.

He was also placed on the sex offenders register for 10 years and made subject to a sexual harm prevention order to curb his internet activities and limit his contact with children.

Jason Clarke – Warwick

16 Tuesday Mar 2021

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March 2021

Face of paedophile who posed as soldier while grooming girl online

This is the face of a 47-year-old man who groomed a 14-year-old girl online while pretending to be a former soldier.

The girl began chatting with Jason Clarke via a social media network and within weeks it had escalated to sexual images being exchanged between the pair.

His offences only came to light when an unexpected comment at school by the teenager led to suspicions being raised by her teachers and the true extent of what was happening came to light.

Her teacher’s suspicions proved correct when it was found the 14-year-old had been exchanging sexual images with a Warwick man more than three times her age but posing as a 28-year-old.

Clarke – who tried to blame his victim for the conversations becoming sexual when interviewed by police – was jailed last week for 20 months for his crimes and Warwickshire Police has now released his custody image.

Clarke, of Webb Drive, Warwick, had previously admitted causing or inciting a child to engage in sexual activity, engaging in sexual communication with a child and causing or inciting a child to look at an indecent image.

The victim told Warwick Crown Court, through a heart-wrenching impact statement, that she still suffers nightmares and awakes “scared he was in my room or in my bed”.

The girl’s heartbroken mother also penned a statement which spoke of the pain at watching her daughter “become a shadow of her former self”.

“You (Clarke) have broken a bond myself and [her daughter] had. I feel angry that you managed to manipulate her in to doing what you wanted and made her feel like you were her world.”

Judge Jacob Hallam QC told Clarke: “You pretended that were not a man in your 40s who lived at home with his loving wife and were father to two children.

“Instead you pretended you were a 28-year-old ex-soldier, seeking no doubt to take on the mantle of the life of a man who was more exotic, and an ex-soldier would appeal more to the child who you were engaging in conversation.

“You utterly misled this child for your own sexual gratification. Creating for her a fantasy of a man on whom she thought she could rely and to whom she felt she was becoming attached.

“She felt that as you groomed her. You had all the knowledge. You had all the power. You had all the control.”

David Atkinson – Kenilworth

13 Saturday Mar 2021

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March 2021

Council Children’s Services team leader started sexual chat with what he thought was girl, 13, online

The career of a Leicestershire children’s services team manager is in tatters after a covert police operation caught him indulging in sexual chat with what he believed to be a 13-year-old girl.

But disgraced David Atkinson has escaped being jailed after pleading guilty at Warwick Crown Court to attempting to cause a child to watch a sexual act.

Recorder Balraj Bhatia QC observed that as a team manager in Leicestershire County Council’s children’s services department, the 42-year-old ‘should have known better.’

Prosecutor Tim Sapwell said that in June 2019 Atkinson ‘began to engage in conversation on a chat platform set up by an undercover police officer.’

It began with Atkinson contacting a profile posted by the officer, saying ‘hi’ and asking whether she was ‘into older guys.’

Told the girl was only 13, he immediately asked for a picture of her and asked if she would like to see an image of his genitals.

But he asked to see her first, and when she said she did not have any pictures, he threatened to end their conversation, so he was sent a legal picture of a 13-year-old girl.

That did not satisfy him, and he asked about her breasts and sent her a picture of him exposing himself as he asked her to take a picture of herself in her underwear.

He was sent a picture of the girl with a filter giving her animal ears, and said he would like to see her with less on.

Atkinson sent a picture of someone in a car and said he would like to take her for a ride, and he again asked her to go into the bathroom and take a picture of herself in her underwear.

The police then executed a warrant at his home where he was arrested, and they seized his phone and laptop which showed he had visited a porn site with references to teenagers.

When he was interviewed Atkinson claimed he was on holiday at the time and had no knowledge of any of the activity and suggested his devices had been hacked, said Mr Sapwell.

He observed that through his employment, Atkinson would have known of the issues his activity could cause, and Recorder Bhatia commented: “He could have known better, and should have known better.”

Sentencing Atkinson, Recorder Bhatia told him: “You are a man hitherto of positive good character.

“You had an extremely responsible job, and that job no doubt entailed work with families who required your assistance, families which no doubt had young children with emotional problems which required the assistance of your department.

“So you are well aware of the difficulties many young girls have in difficult family situations, and the trauma and distress they may have suffered.

“I accept what you did was out of character. It is also plain that you had your own difficulties which you have dealt with by a combination of prescription drugs, alcohol and cannabis.

“It is difficult to understand what it was that triggered you into committing the offences you now fall to be sentenced for.

“You have a young daughter. Imagine she is 13 years of age and subject to precisely these facts. You would expect that the court should take a harsh view in punishing that defendant.

“I accept this was an undercover officer and therefore no actual harm was perpetuated, but it is the intended harm I have to look at. I have to consider whether it should be an immediate custodial sentence or whether there are proper grounds on which to suspend that sentence.”

Atkinson, of Red Lane, Burton Green, Kenilworth, who also admitted attempting to engage in sexual communication with a child, was sentenced to eight months jail suspended for two years.

He was also ordered to take part in a rehabilitation activity, to do 180 hours of unpaid work, to register as a sex offender for ten years, and to pay £500 costs.