Judges double sex offender’s prison sentence

APPEAL COURT ACTS ON MAN WHO TRIED TO GROOM GIRLS

A REPEAT sex offender who tried to groom girls online – but was actually chatting with detectives – has had his jail sentence more than doubled following a review by the Court of Appeal.

Lewis Watts, pictured, believed he was in conversation with three 12-year-old girls and he sent them a variety of sexual messages, urging one to engage in sexual activity for his gratification, a court heard in June.

However, the “girls” were all police officers.

Watts, 26, Saxelby Road, Melton, was jailed for three years at Leicester Crown Court in June.

However, the Solicitor General, Lucy Frazer QC, referred the case to top judges at the Court of Appeal under the Unduly Lenient Sentence scheme.

They ruled the original sentence was insufficient and more than doubled it to six years and three months.

The Solicitor General said: “Watts’s intentions were deeply disturbing and designed to harm young children.

“The seriousness of his offending had to reflect the gravity of his criminal intentions.

“I am pleased that the Court of Appeal saw fit to increase his sentence.”

Watts’s offending dates back to 2015, when he was convicted of three counts of possession of indecent photographs of children.

A court heard he intended to share the images with others.

That meant he was subject to a sexual harm prevention order, which automatically should have led to a harsher sentence for those offences for which he was dealt with in June.

The latest offences led to Watts being charged with three counts of attempting to engage in sexual communication with a child.

He was also charged with one count of attempting to cause or incite a child under 13 to engage in sexual activity, and of breaching the sexual harm prevention order.

Watts initially pleaded not guilty to the latest charges but changed his plea on the first day of the trial. On June 28, he was sentenced.

Recorder Balraj Bhatia QC told him at that hearing: “You’ve been before the courts on a number of occasions related to similar offences and breaching a sexual harm prevention order, initially with a suspended sentence, and you’ve also had terms in custody.

“The sexual harm prevention order is designed to protect the public from you. If you continue to breach it, the sentences will only get longer.”

A statement released by the Attorney General’s office said Recorder Bhatia should have given more weight to what Watts was intending to do to young girls and less weight to the mitigating fact that none of the girls was real.

The statement said: “This ruling follows the decision by the Court of Appeal that where a defendant sets out to sexually abuse a child, in circumstances where the child in fact is an adult posing as a child, the starting point for sentencing should be set by reference to the harm that the defendant intended to cause the fictional child.

“The fact that there was no real child for the defendant to abuse will then be reflected in a downward movement from that starting point.

“The extent of that reduction will be a matter for the court in individual cases to decide.”