SNARED AGAIN
Paedophile caught twice in less than month by vigilante group who posed as young girls
A PAEDOPHILE who sent messages and semi-nude pictures to a ‘14-year-old girl’ was caught by a vigilante group for a second time in less than a month after he was released from prison for almost identical offences.
Allen Hardman, 21, was handed a Sexual Harm Prevention Order and a community order at Manchester Minshull Street Crown Court on March 25 this year.
He had attempted to meet a girl under 16 following grooming and attempted to engage in sexual communication.
Hardman, from Eccles, believed he was talking to girls as young as 12 – but he was actually talking to decoy profiles set up by the paedophile hunter group For Our Kids.
Less than a month after being released from remand, he was caught by the same group engaging in conversation with someone he believed to be a 14-year-old girl.
Hardman has now been jailed for three years at Manchester Crown Court.
Prosecutor Andrea Lock told the court how soon after the defendant was released from custody, the vigilante group discovered he was using social media again.
The group, posing as the girl, agreed to meet him at his suggested meeting place of Greggs near Salford Royal Hospital.
But he was confronted by members of the paedophile hunter group and arrested at the scene.
Sentencing, Judge Richard Mansell QC told Hardman: “You now need to do some serious work in prison.” Hardman, of Cavendish Close, was jailed for three years for attempting to meet a child following sexual grooming and attempting to breach a Sexual Harm Prevention Order.
He will also have to sign the Sex
Offenders’ Register for ten years.
His five-year Sexual Harm Prevention Order remains in place from his previous sentence.