LONELY PAEDOPHILE CAUGHT IN ONLINE CHILD ABUSE STING AND GIVEN SUSPENDED SENTENCE
A loner paedophile with no friends was caught encouraging someone he believed to be a 12-year-old girl to take naked photos of herself in school toilets.Ian Hough was actually communicating with an undercover police officer, who was set up to catch online child sex predators.
When police raided his home, they found that the 58-year-old had been sharing sexualised chats via WhatsApp with another decoy account pretending to be a child years earlier.
He faced multiple charges including attempted sexual communication with a child, attempting to incite a child to engage in sexual activity, and attempting to incite a child to watch sexual content.
During the chats, Hough asked the undercover officer, who posed as a girl, about her age and what she was wearing, urging her to go to the school toilet and send naked photos.
He admitted that he wanted to keep and look at the photos and possibly masturbate to them.
Police also discovered sexually explicit chats from 2017 with another underage girl, where he mentioned the risk of getting into trouble as a paedophile and asked for videos of sexual acts.
Hough was arrested on May 10 at his Winwick Road address, which was found to be in poor condition.
He responded with 'no comment' during police interviews.
The court was told he was a slow learner, had a low IQ, and had suffered from health decline.
He was sentenced to two years imprisonment, suspended for two years, and ordered to complete 50 rehabilitation days, sign the sex offender register for 10 years, and obey a lifetime sexual harm prevention order.
The judge highlighted his remorse and vulnerable status, considering the sentence in an exceptional case.
