AVELEY MAN JAILED FOR SWEETMEET CHATS WITH 'TEENAGE GIRLS'
A MAN has been jailed after he tried to message five different 14-year-old girls in four weeks.However, all five of Barrie Grayson's intended victims were actually vigilantes posing as children.
He bombarded them with sexual messages, telling them he was “horny” and sending them pornography, despite them repeatedly referencing their ages and mentioning school.
He told one she was “sexy” and asked if he could have a threesome with her and her friend.
Grayson, of Hall Road in Aveley, even told one she wouldn’t be able to move in with him in case the police found out, prosecutor Kemi Fapohunda told Southend Crown Court on Thursday (March 4).
“You plainly have a sexual interest in teenage girls,” Judge Siew Loke told Grayson as she sentenced him to four years in prison.
He would have received six, she said, but he was entitled to a third off due to his early guilty pleas.
Grayson, 48, met his targets on a dating app called SweetMeet.
When each said they were 14, said Mrs Fapohunda, he persisted in chatting with them and moved the conversations onto WhatsApp.
He was arrested when the vigilante group asked him to meet.
An “altercation” broke out, said Mrs Fapohunda, and police had to be called.
Grayson was arrested on suspicion of communicating sexually with a child.
He has since been attacked after the vigilantes posted his name and image before he had been convicted.
When police searched his phone, they found not only Grayson’s chats with the five intended victims but also two illegal videos of humans engaging in sexual acts with a dog and a horse.
Interviewed by officers, he admitted his offences and claimed he’d committed them at “a low point” whilst struggling with a drug addiction.
He said he was sorry he did it and it was wrong.
Grayson was ultimately charged with 11 offences: one count of attempting to cause or incite a child to engage in penetrative sexual activity, four counts of attempting to cause a child to watch a sexual act, five counts of attempting sexual communication with a child, and one count of possessing extreme pornography.
He pleaded guilty to all charges.
Mrs Pathmanathan said her client had no previous convictions and was a father to two sons with whom he enjoyed good relationships.
He had a supportive family, with his parents accompanying him to court, and had already managed to conquer his drug addiction in the 14 months since his arrest.
In his probation pre-sentence interview, she said, Grayson expressed remorse and demonstrated understanding of the harm his crimes would have caused if the victims had been real.
Sentencing Grayson, Judge Loke said: “You engaged in highly sexualised conversations.
You asked for images of them… On some occasions you told them you were masturbating and thinking about them.” In addition to the four-year prison sentence, she imposed a ten-year Sexual Harm Prevention Order and told him he will be on the sex offenders register for life.
