ANTHONY NEWNES EXPOSED BY RED ROSE UK
A man who posed as a woman before sending sexually explicit images to a paedophile hunter posing as a teenage girl landed himself in court.Antony Newnes called himself ‘Stacey’ when he signed up for the Badoo dating website before making contact with the Red Rose UK undercover operative posing as the teenager.
Newton Aycliffe Magistrates Court heard how the conversation moved to a messaging service when the 34-year-old was told he was talking to an underage child.
Michael Embleton, prosecuting, said a series of messages were shared between January 27 and February 14 before it took a more sexualised turn.
He said the defendant sent a video of a woman performing a sex act and told the girl that it was a video of ‘Stacey’.
The court heard how the paedophile hunters contacted the police and confronted the defendant at his Peterlee home.
Newnes, now of St Nicholas Terrace, Easington Colliery, pleaded guilty to attempted sexual communication with a child.
Jaxon Taylor, mitigating, said the father-of-one accepts sending the messages but there was nothing sexually inappropriate until the early hours of February 14.
He said: “There has been the sending of messages by the defendant to the decoy, images not of himself but images of a sexual nature.” Colling Morris, the chairman of the magistrates’ bench, sentenced Newnes to six months in custody suspended for 12 months and ordered him to attend 25 rehabilitation activity requirement (RAR) days.
He said: “We feel that the RAR days are the most important factor in this case to address your offending.
“If you re-offend in the next year that means you could be resentenced and you could be sent straight to prison.” Newnes was ordered to sign on the sex offenders’ register for seven years and told to pay £239 towards court costs.
An application for a sexual harm prevention order will be heard at a later date.
