(Image: The Northern Echo)
A County Durham pervert asked a '14-year-old girl' for topless pictures and suggested meeting in his BMW.
Andrew Lee messaged the 'girl' on Kik, asked for a photo, and inquired about her sexual experience.
Having received the images he sent back a photo of naked male genitalia. But Durham Crown Court was told the girl was, in reality, an undercover police decoy.
The court heard that Lee made contact in January last year using the name ‘Stephen Poole’, claiming to be 40, and was told the girl was 14.
After being told the girl had previously had sex with a 29-year-old man in his car, Lee asked if she “fancied it” and suggested meeting the next day in his black BMW.
Lee then asked for more photos and received another topless image.
Prosecutor Glenn Gatland said the chat ended by mid-February, but police traced Lee through his IP address and arrested him in late March last year.
Lee gave police a statement in which he said he was using a platform for adults to meet and initially thought he was chatting to a man or a “paedo catcher”, so he “played along.”
The 45-year-old of Ninth Street, Blackhall Colliery, initially denied attempting to arrange a child sexual offence and engaging in sexual communication with a child.
But at a hearing early last month he changed his plea and admitted the second charge, which was accepted by the prosecution, while the first count was “left to lie on the file”.
Tyler Plunkett, in mitigation, said Lee was suffering from anxiety at the time and was receiving support from community-based mental health services.
Mr Plunkett said Lee would continue working with those services if he remained at liberty.
Referring to comments in a probation report, Mr Plunkett said the service was confident it could help to manage Lee, who was assessed as posing a “low to medium” risk of re-offending.
Judge Jo Kidd said Lee had, “properly, eventually”, pleaded guilty in the face of “overwhelming evidence”, despite struggling to accept his motivation for offending.
She said the impact on Lee’s employment and family life appear to have been “severe” and that he was now living alone.
“You have had a long time to reflect how you have ended up in this position.”
Judge Kidd suspended Lee’s 12-month prison sentence for two years, during which he must complete 300 hours of unpaid work.
He was also made subject to a Sexual Harm Prevention Order and sex-offender notification requirements for ten years.
The judge told Lee that an “appropriately trained” officer would supervise him and manage his future risk in the community.
She also ordered the iPhone Lee used to commit the offences to be forfeited.