REPEAT OFFENDER THOMAS STEVENS JAILED FOR SEX CHATS WITH 13-YEAR-OLD GIRL
AN offender has again been caught conversing in a sexual manner with a child – this time shortly after his release from prison.Thomas Stevens has previously been convicted of a child sex offence, but he flouted his obligations to sign the sex offender register with this latest offence.
He also has previous convictions for calling emergency services out to fake incidents, and for forcing train doors open during journeys – causing emergency stops and resulting in a train operator having to pay £25,000 in delay compensation.
For his latest offending, the 24-year-old was charged with engaging in sexual communications with a child and failing to comply with his sex offender registration requirements.
He admitted both offences during a previous hearing and was sentenced at Liverpool Crown Court on Friday, where he appeared via video-link from HM Prison Liverpool.
David Birrell, prosecuting, told the court that Stevens was made the subject of sex offender registration requirements in October 2022, having been convicted of causing a child to engage in sexual activity.
He was found to have 'groomed and pressured' a child into performing sex acts on herself after lying about his age and jailed for three years.
The defendant met the 12-year-old girl through an online video game and asked if he could add her on Snapchat, lying that he was aged 15, when he was in fact 19.
She told him she was 12, but they began regular intimate chats on WhatsApp and Instagram, including sending sexualised images and videos.
Stevens sent photos of himself performing sex acts, while she sent naked photos on his request, and he also asked her to perform sex acts on herself on a daily basis and video them so he could see.
The chats ended after she saw a post on his Instagram page which gave away his true age.
The victim told police that she did not like performing the sex acts, did them to make the defendant happy and that she felt pressured by him.
Stevens was released from custody in July last year, but he was arrested in March after officers found that he was using a number of usernames and aliases on social media that had not been registered with Cheshire Police, as required by the terms of his sex offender registration.
Officers also seized his laptop and mobile phone, with an analysis revealing that he was communicating in a sexual manner with a vulnerable 13-year-old girl over WhatsApp and Snapchat – over a ‘significant’ number of days, and ‘very shortly’ after his release from prison.
The court heard that the girl’s profile photo was of her in a school uniform, with Mr Birrell commenting: “She is plainly a child,” adding that this was a real child rather than a decoy account.
The child made it clear that she was only aged 13, but Stevens made comments that he wanted to engage in sexual activity with her and said that she was ‘making him horny’.
