Paedophile fled from meeting with ‘girl’

POLICE HAD TO SMASH HIS CAR WINDOW TO DETAIN HIM, COURT TOLD

A PAEDOPHILE who set up a meeting with someone he thought was a 13-year-old girl was too “cowardly” to go through with it.

Jonathan Williams drove away from the meeting place but, as he waited at traffic lights, undercover police smashed his car window to detain him.

Caernarfon Crown Court heard that Williams, 32, had used the Kik app to contact the victim, who was really an undercover police officer.

A judge told Williams that he had “dipped his toe in the world of paedophilia” and devastated his family, but society would be better served if he were rehabilitated.

The defendant, of Cilfach Crwys, Penrhosgarnedd, admitted two offences and was given a 16-month jail term suspended for two years.

Prosecutor David Mainstone said that, in July last year, Williams had an online sexual conversation on the Kik app with a “girl” calling themselves Grace, who was an undercover police officer. He asked her if she had touched a male intimately.

A possible meeting was discussed in Arfon, but he wrote, “You’re young though so it’s dangerous”, and it never happened.

But the prosecutor said that, in January and February this year, Williams began a new conversation with “Grace” on Kik, who again said she was 13 and from Llanberis.

He made sexual comments and asked for a photo of her knickers.

A photo was sent of the top of some red knickers. Williams replied: “Not a good pic. Let’s see all of them.”

Eventually, “Grace” and Williams arranged to meet at a Llanberis car park on February 2 at 6.45pm. But Williams drove past it in his Vauxhall Corsa.

Undercover police officers were waiting for him and followed him to temporary traffic lights, the court heard.

Mr Mainstone said they had to smash Williams’ car window and physically remove him from the vehicle.

They seized his phone, which showed he had been the man communicating with “Grace” using the name Wimp Boy.

Elen Owen, defending, said her client had got cold feet and decided not to go through with the meeting.

When police approached his car at the traffic lights, he panicked.

Ms Owen said there is “an element of inadequacy” in his “slightly pathetic” character, and he has a long way to go to rehabilitate himself.

He is supported by his partner and parents, who were in court and were said to be “absolutely traumatised” by what their only child had done.

Williams admitted attempting to incite a girl aged 13 to 15 to engage in sexual activity between January 15 and February 3 this year, and attempting to meet a girl under 15 following grooming on February 2.

The judge Her Honour Nicola Saffman told the defendant: “You are a paedophile. You are a man who is sexually attracted to young children.

“Your intention was to go to Llanberis to (meet) a child but you were too cowardly to carry out that to a conclusion. I have no doubt you would have carried out an act of trying to engage in sexual activity with a child.

“What you did was effectively dip your toe in the world of being a paedophile.”

But she said society in North Wales and Gwynedd in particular would be better served by her “nipping his depraved behaviour in the bud” to prevent it escalating, and an extremely experienced probation officer agreed.

She gave him the 16-month jail term for attempting to meet an underage girl, and a concurrent term of six months imprisonment for attempting to incite a child to engage in sexual activity - with both terms suspended for two years.

She said Williams must do at least 35 sessions of the Horizon sex offender course, do 60 days of rehabilitation activity and wear an electronic tag for two years so probation officers know where he is.

He was given a sexual harm prevention order for 10 years with conditions to control his use of the internet.

The judge praised North Wales Police for their operation. She said: “Too often we see in this court self-styled paedophile hunters but this was an organised, measured investigation by the police.”