WARRINGTON MAN SLAPPED WITH SUSPENDED SENTENCE AFTER ONLINE CHILD SEX PLOT
A PERVERT thought he was chatting to a 14-year-old boy online when he was trying to arrange sexual activity.But Jordan Nicholls was in fact chatting with a decoy account, with the adult operator pretending to be a child in an effort to root out online child sex offenders.
The 23-year-old was subsequently charged with attempted sexual communications with a child, attempting to incite a child to engage in sexual activity, and attempting to arrange the commission of a child sex offence.
Having indicated guilty pleas to all charges before Chester Magistrates’ Court on a previous occasion, the defendant appeared back in court recently to be sentenced.
Valeriya Tonkinson, prosecuting, explained how the sick sex chats took place in Warrington between January 14 and 17 this year.
Nicholls believed he was talking to a 14-year-old boy, with discussions being ‘highly sexualised and around masturbation and graphic sexual activity.' The defendant also incited the ‘child’ to perform sex acts on himself during the course of the depraved conversations.
He went further however, attempting to arrange a meet-up with the child in which sexual activity could take place.
But he was caught out by the decoy account, with no sexual activity taking place as the child did not exist.
Before sentencing, magistrates commented that the offences were so serious that only a custodial sentence could be justified.
It was said that Nicholls made attempts to engage in highly sexualised conversation with a child.
However, taking his guilty pleas into account, the custodial sentence was suspended by the court.
Magistrates concluded that there was a ‘likely prospect of rehabilitation’ by addressing sexualised behaviour.
This will be done through a rehabilitation activity requirement, and with the assistance of a ‘stringent’ sexual harm prevention order.
Nicholls, of New Road in Latchford, was sentenced to 26 weeks in prison, but this was suspended for the next two years.
He was ordered to complete 35 rehabilitation activity requirement days and pay court costs of £85 and a surcharge of £154.
In addition, the defendant was told he must sign the sex offender register for the next seven years and abide by a sexual harm prevention order for the same length of time.
An order was also approved to deprive the defendant of his electronic devices, tablet computers, and mobile phones seized by police.
