WIRRAL MAN JAILED FOR TRYING TO GROOM GIRL AND SEND EXPLICIT IMAGES
A PERVERT caught sending explicit images to who he believed was a 12-year-old girl tried to pin the blame on his ex-girlfriend, a court heard.Mark Gaunt, 41, sent a succession of disgusting pictures via WhatsApp featuring both men's and women's genitalia to 'Bekki R' who he believed was 12 but was in fact an adult woman acting as a decoy.
At Liverpool Crown Court, David Birrell, prosecuting, described how Gaunt, of The Anzacs, New Ferry, first contacted 'Bekki R' using the Waplog dating app in June 2019.
She told him her age but the messages quickly became sexual as Gaunt began contacting her through WhatsApp.
He said they should meet and asked her intimate questions as well as bombarding her with sexually explicit images and a video.
The adult woman shared the messages with police officers and Gaunt was arrested at his home on May 22 2020.
He denied contacting the woman and told officers it must have been his ex-girlfriend using his mobile phone but she later denied the offences.
Gaunt's offending continued when he began using the decoy's number and began sending her threatening and abusive messages including one where he threatened to shoot her with a slingshot.
On other occasions he called her a "proper tramp", "a coward" and "a wrong 'un" with Mr Birrell describing how he also began to phone her prompting her to contact the police again.
In a victim impact statement, the woman described how Gaunt's behaviour left her feeling "very shaken" with "high levels of anxiety".
Gaunt continued to deny his offending until the day of his trial when he pleaded guilty to attempting to engage in sexual communication with a child and attempting to cause a child under 13 to watch a sexual act.
He later also pleaded guilty to a charge of intimidating a witness.
John Weate, defending, said Gaunt, who had no previous convictions, had "found it difficult to come to terms with what he's done" but added there are "no sob stories in relation to his childhood" that could excuse his behaviour.
Mr Weate said: "Despite his denials he is ashamed of his actions and the distress they have caused." Judge Robert Trevor-Jones, branded Gaunt's behaviour as "suggestive and indecent" considering he thought the girl he was talking to was aged 12.
"You were gradually trying to groom her and seek sexual images of her," he said, handing Gaunt a 10 month prison sentence suspended for 18 months.
Judge Trevor-Jones added that Gaunt will have to sign the sex offenders' register for 10 years and be the subject of a three year restraining order not to contact the woman who acted as a decoy.
