No jail for groomer
ACYBER pervert from Runcorn wept in the dock as was spared prison after sexually grooming what he thought was a ‘13-year-old girl’ online – only to be snared in a paedophile-hunter group sting.
Craig Moores, 26, of Limekiln Row, Castlefields, had made contact with supposed teenager ‘Jessica Logan’ via Facebook on May 2 this year and he swiftly steered the conversation in a sexual direction as the exchange switched to text messages and the encrypted social networking service WhatsApp. Simon Parry, opening the prosecution at Chester Crown Court last Thursday, said Moores had started out by asking for her number and for images of ‘Jessica’ and Moores also sent her one of himself.
She told Moores she was 13 years old but that ‘didn’t put him off’, and the explicit nature of his requests escalated, including asking for a picture of her performing a sex act and over whether she would engage in sexual activity with him, and he sent an indecent picture of himself.
In reality he was communicating with an adult from the Justice 4 Kids paedophile-hunter group and on May 19 they arranged to meet at 11am at McDonald’s on West Lane in Runcorn, and Moores was placed under citizen’s arrest at around 10.55am to await the arrival of the police.
He told police his ‘head was ● messed up’ and made admissions.
On July 5 he pleaded guilty to attempting to meet a child after sexual grooming, trying to engage in sexual communication with a child, and attempting to cause a child to watch sexual activity. Moores – bearded and dressed in casual clothes in the dock – sobbed when William Staunton spoke on behalf of the defence, describing Moores as ‘lonely and inadequate’ with learning difficulties and ‘poor selfesteem’ and as someone who ‘rarely sallies forth’ from his home.
Mr Staunton said the case had involved ‘no person who has been wronged’, and he cited appeals court precedent indicating that putting offenders such as Moores in prison together can result them perceiving a ‘normalisation of this kind of behaviour’. He urged the court to ‘draw back from immediate custody’.
Honorary Recorder Of Chester Roger Dutton, presiding, said the probation service had advised imposing a community order but he said the offences were ‘too serious’, and instead he sentenced Moores to 12 months in prison, suspended for two years, in addition to a Sexual Harm Prevention Order, 7pm-6am curfew and 10 years on the sexoffenders register requiring him to notify police of his address and allow them to inspect his internet activity.
Moores was also served with a 35-day rehabilitation requirement intended to deal with his behaviour, which the judge said ‘needs to be tackled now’, adding that if Moores went to prison, he would be out in six months ‘with nothing being done at all’ to address the specific nature of his offending.
Recorder Dutton said: “What you attempted to do was to meet with the ambition of having some sexual encounter with a 13-year-old girl.
“You know perfectly well that that’s wrong.
“You cultivated a friendship on the internet and you arranged what you thought was going to be the ultimate sexual encounter by meeting that young person.
“The reality was there never was a young person, you were caught by a paedophile investigation group. This is a serious matter because of your intentions.”
He added: “If it had not been a paedophile investigation group, this would have been a child, there would have been contact and who knows what would have happened.”