Barrister swapped vile messages with 'girls' and tried to meet one for sex

Dad Guy Sims had a condom in his pocket and two bottles of cider when he was caught trying to meet a 13-year-old ‘girl’ in Portsmouth in 2017.

Released under investigation by police, who had been operating the decoy account of the ‘girl’ that 53-year-old Sims thought he was messaging, he was once again caught swapping vile messages with officers posing as a teen girl.

Sims told jurors at his trial at Oxford Crown Court this week that in 2019 – when he was caught a second time – he’d been deliberately laying bait online to see if an undercover police officer would attempt to ‘entrap’ him.

But he acknowledged he’d not mentioned his clandestine operation when he was interviewed by detectives in 2019.

Prosecutor Andrew Houston accused Sims of lying, calling him a ‘predatory paedophile trying to arrange a meeting with a 13-year-old girl’.

Closing the case to the jury, Mr Houston said: “He is somebody with a sexual interest in girls under 16.

“He didn’t want ‘fun’, he wanted sex and that why he was there [at the Portsmouth meeting].”

Guy Sims outside Oxford Crown Court

Sims outside Oxford Crown Court Picture: OXFORD MAIL

The jury was told Sims sent messages to profiles on teen dating website MyLOL, asking ‘girls’ who gave their ages as 13, 14, 15, about school, their bedrooms and if they fancied ‘driving somewhere quiet’. Sims, who gave various false ages, said he liked ‘younger girls’.

One of the profiles, in the name of 13-year-old ‘Lizzie’, was operated by a specialist police squad. He told her he liked girls of ‘all ages’ and asked: “Do you like older guys?” On September 27, 2017, he was arrested in Portsmouth, having travelled down to meet her.

With him when he was arrested was a condom in his pocket, two bottles of cider and a mobile phone. He claimed he’d found the alcohol and phone on the street. He had a camouflage hide in his car not for a woodland tryst with the teen but because it was equipment used at his daughter’s Woodcraft Folk youth club, he said.

Having been released under investigation, in 2019 he was again caught swapping messages with a decoy account, ‘Molly’.

In Kik messages read to the jury, Sims spoke of finding her attractive, calling her ‘sexy’ and ‘babe’. Sims asked her about school, her plans for the weekend and offered to bring cider to a meeting in her bedroom. The pair had talked of her bunking off school so they could meet up – either at McDonald’s or at her mother’s house – although no such meeting took place.

It was important that the girl’s mother did not find him in the bedroom, he said. “She might imagine it was more, so we should not give her the chance to get the wrong impression.”

Sims said he wanted to see if police officers were on the web ‘hunting’ potential paedophiles.

The selfie Guy Sims sent Picture: SEROCU

A selfie sent by Guy Sims Picture: SEROCU

Closing his client’s case to the jury, Alesdair King said there was a wide gulf between Sims’ ‘fantasy’ and him carrying it out in reality.

“Are you sure at the time he made those arrangements he did so intending to carry out that sexual activity? That is the point,” he said.

“Is what is being said by Mr Sims fantasy or is it an expression of reality?

“It is not, I accept on his behalf, a particularly pleasant fantasy. It is, in fact, a repulsive one. But that is not the crime with which he is charged.”

Jurors took three-and-a-half hours to find Sims, of Castle Lane, Bedford, guilty of three counts of arranging or facilitating the commission of a child sex offence. He was remanded in custody by Judge Maria Lamb pending the surrender of his passport and will be sentenced on September 9.

Judge Lamb said: “Mr Sims will know what the likely outcome is here and shouldn’t entertain any hopes that this will be anything other than immediate custody.”

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