MANSFIELD MAN, 41, SENTENCED FOR ONLINE GROOMING OF 'CHILD'
A 41-year-old man sent pictures of himself lying on his bed in his underwear to a "child" who said she was 13, a court heard.Graham Chadwick, of East Lane, Edwinstowe, initially told her online he was 39 years old before sending the photos.
Nottingham Crown Court heard he also sent a video of himself performing a sexual act.
Gurdial Singh, prosecuting, said "the conversation then becomes sexualised".
Chadwick said he was willing to be her first love and wanted to touch her.
The court heard he made arrangements to meet her at Paddington Tube Station.
But all along the "child" was an undercover police officer masquerading as the girl.
Officers attended his address and seized a phone and laptop.
Chadwick was interviewed under caution.
"He admitted he said he wanted to meet her, it was never going to take place, it was all make-believe", added Mr Singh.
Chadwick, who has no previous convictions, pleaded guilty to attempting to engage in sexual communications with a child and attempting to cause a child to watch a sexual act.
Recorder Jason Macadam told him in the dock: "You have pleaded guilty to two awful offences.
This sort of offending is considered very properly by right-minded members of the public as abhorrent".
He said "over a considerable period of time" you were communicating with a person you considered to be a child; a person "who is vulnerable because of their limited understanding of what would be going on".
"I don't accept for one moment you were not sexually interested in that child," added the Recorder.
"Whatever your interest in that child it was certainly, in part, sexual".
He also said that Chadwick had sent videos, still photographs and discussed meeting her.
"How far this would have gone, if a real child, we will thankfully never know".
Chadwick's culpability was high, he said, he was grooming this child or person he thought was a child.
"There is a significant disparity in age," he said.
"This was an attempt only but that does not minimise your culpability.
You, I have said a number of times, thought you were dealing with a child".
Chadwick was given a 16-month prison sentence, suspended for two years, 40 rehabilitation activity days, and was ordered to pay costs of £300.
He was given a sexual harm prevention order for ten years and is required to sign the sex offenders' register.
