A married carer played out his sexual fantasies online with what he supposed was a 14-year-old boy.
Cutteslowe man Keith Rose sent naked pictures of himself to the ‘child’, whom he met on an over-18s gay dating site, requested he send explicit images in return and said it was a ‘shame’ they did not live closer.
He sent the ‘boy’ a video of himself performing a sex act and, in messages said to have extended over 1,300 pages in the prosecution papers, asked if ‘I excite you’.
However, the teenager with whom Rose thought he was exchanging messages and images was, in fact, an adult working for a vigilante so-called ‘paedophile hunter’ group.
Members of the group confronted him and he was arrested at the end of August 2021. He said on his arrest: “I have nothing to say right now. It was just a stupid – [the remark was left unfinished].” He added that ‘it was just on my mobile’.
Rose, of David Walter Close, Oxford, pleaded guilty at the magistrates’ court to attempted sexual communication with a child, attempting to cause a child aged 13 to 15 to watch an image of sexual activity and attempting to incite a boy to engage in sexual activity by taking naked pictures of himself.
Imposing 16 months’ imprisonment suspended for two years, Judge Maria Lamb said: “For a period of two months, which is quite a protracted period of time, you communicated with an individual, a boy whom you thought to be 14 years of age.
“I’m glad to hear said on your behalf that you depart from the preposterous account you gave to the writer of the pre-sentence report that this was not done for any sort of sexual gratification and you were not sexually interested in children.
“1,300-odd pages of [chat] logs, your requests for naked pictures, your sending of a video of you masturbating indicate – firmly – otherwise.”
She agreed that the phone used to message the ‘boy’ should be forfeited to the police.
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Turning down a request that the defendant was allowed to recover family photographs before the mobile phone was destroyed, Judge Lamb said: “Those who use their devices to engage in illegal activity, as this defendant has, reap what they sow.”
As part of his sentence, Rose must do up to 35 rehabilitation activity requirement days and pay £250 in costs.
Mitigating, Gareth James said the offences had been driven by frustration and boredom in his client’s daily life.
He had stopped working in order to care for his wife. The woman would be significantly affected if Rose was sent to prison, the court heard.
The defendant was said to feel remorseful and ashamed of what he had done.
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