MATTHEW DOUGLAS OF BLACKBURN SENTENCED FOR ONLINE CHILD SEX OFFENCES
In March 2019, a 31-year-old man from Blackburn, Matthew Douglas, was sentenced to prison after encouraging chat room users to commit acts of child rape.Douglas engaged in extensive private conversations within online chat rooms, urging others to carry out serious sexual assaults on children.
He was eventually arrested by an undercover police officer who had gained his trust by pretending to be a fellow paedophile.
The crimes spanned over a 12-month period starting in 2017.
Douglas admitted to having experienced such inclinations for the past decade and revealed he had been viewing explicit images of children since he was 13 years old.
At Preston Crown Court, prosecutor Joe Allman stated: “The defendant admitted to exchanging images of children, which arose after an undercover officer, who was posing as a like-minded individual in a chat room, had gained the trust of Mr Douglas.” Following his arrest in October, Douglas told officers that he had been waiting a long time to be caught.
He conceded that he had a 'serious problem' for several years and had used approximately 20 fake online accounts over the previous year to engage with others.
Police seized his mobile devices during the investigation and found over 13 explicit images, including one depicting a girl under 10 years old.
Douglas, of Highfield Road in Blackburn, was sentenced to four years in prison after pleading guilty to charges including making indecent images and videos of a child, distributing indecent images of a child, and engaging in sexual activity in the presence of a child.
In addition to his custodial sentence, Judge Heather Lloyd imposed a two-year extended licence period, an indefinite sexual harm prevention order, and ordered him to sign the sex offenders register for life.
