MAN JAILED FOR CHILD EXPLOITATION AND POSSESSION OF CHILD PORNOGRAPHY
A man has received a prison sentence after engaging in explicit online discussions with an undercover officer, whom he believed was a 13-year-old girl.Alistair Neil Sinclair, aged 53 and from Winter Hey Lane, Horwich, was found to have stored hundreds of images depicting child pornography on his electronic devices.
His online interactions took place via ChatiwChat under the username ‘4Mumanddaughter’ and later on Kik, where he made alarming statements.
Sinclair admitted to pleasuring himself during the conversations and claimed that age was not an issue for him, stating: “Doesn’t bother me, I’ve ****** younger.” He further inquired if the girl liked ‘older ****’ and encouraged her to look for her mother’s toys.
These exchanges, which lasted less than an hour in April 2019, represented only a fraction of his larger pattern of contact with individuals he thought were underage girls.
Following his arrest in August 2019, police recovered multiple indecent images of children aged from 3 to 15 years old from Sinclair’s devices.
These included images categorized as A, B, and C, alongside a prohibited image.
Investigations showed Sinclair had downloaded images of child pornography over a period spanning from 2017 to 2019.
Further online chats revealed his discussions about engaging in sexual acts with children and a preference for very young girls, possibly as young as five or six.
However, police found these claims to be unfounded.
Sinclair initially denied involvement in the offences but later admitted to attempting to engage sexually with a minor.
During the court hearing, it was observed that Sinclair was somewhat in denial about his actions.
The defense described him as a lonely individual who was the full-time carer for his 92-year-old mother and suggested he was in need of support.
Nonetheless, Judge Martin Walsh sentenced Sinclair to 32 months in prison, imposed a ten-year Sexual Offences Prevention Order (SOPO), and ordered his lifelong registration on the Sex Offenders Register.
The judge acknowledged Sinclair’s denial and cited the highly sexualized nature of his communications as evidence of a clear sexual interest in females under 16.
