Paedo snared by decoy posing as girl

A “COWARDLY” paedophile used chat app Kik to meet a “13-year-old” girl who was in fact an undercover police officer but he changed his mind at the last minute.

Jonathan Williams, 32, had arranged to meet “Grace” in a car park in Llanberis in Gwynedd on February 2 even though she told him she was 13. But he instead drove past the meeting point.

Undercover police officers were waiting for Williams and followed his Vauxhall Corsa to temporary traffic lights before smashing his car window to remove him from the vehicle, a court heard.

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

Williams, of Cilfach Crwys, Penrhosgarnedd, appeared at Caernarfon Crown Court, where the judge said the defendant had “dipped his toe in the world of paedophilia”.

Prosecutor David Mainstone said in July, Williams had a sexual conversation on the Kik app with a “girl” calling herself Grace.

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, 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 underwear. Eventually “Grace” and Williams arranged to meet at the Llanberis car park.

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

He panicked when police approached his car at the traffic lights.

She added he has a long way to go to rehabilitate himself.

Williams admitted attempting to incite a girl aged 13 to 15 to engage in sexual activity, and attempting to meet a girl under 15 following grooming.

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

She gave him a 16-month jail term, suspended for two years.

Williams must now complete at least 35 sessions of the Horizon sex offender course, do 60 days of rehabilitation activity and wear an electronic tag for two years.

He was also given a sexual harm prevention order for 10 years.