Featured image credit: Dark Justice/YouTube
A 56-year-old man was caught on camera by a vigilante group when he thought he was meeting a 13-year-old to have sex.
Douglas Smith, who was already on the Sex Offenders Register, believed he was talking to a schoolgirl through Facebook and encouraged his victim to allow him to take her virginity, a court has heard.
Unbeknown to him, though, he was in fact typing his way into a trap.
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When Smith turned up to meet the girl, he was confronted by members of Dark Justice. The group pose as children online in order to catch sex offenders in the act.
Video credit: Dark Justice/YouTube
Newcastle Crown Court heard that, during his five-day conversation with his victim, he groomed the girl by telling her that he loved her, called her 'sexy' and said that she had a beautiful smile.
Smith pleaded guilty to attempting to meet a child after grooming and a breach of registration requirements by failing to inform authorities of where he was living.
The paedophile was given a one-year and eight-month sentence and ordered to serve an extended licence period after he is freed.
Judge Jeremy Freedman said: "You clearly intended there should be full sexual intercourse, even though you believed the girl to be a 13-year-old child who had no sexual experience of any sort.
"The person you in fact communicated with was with an organisation called Dark Justice, who track down people such as you, who attempt to groom children though social networks.
"It is deeply concerning you have not changed your behaviour in any way, despite being on a sex offenders treatment programme.
"You have no real insight into the harm our actions could potentially cause.
"I think you are intent, if left to your own devices, on having sexual relationships with young people, even though you know very well it was wrong to so do and very harmful to potential victims of such offences."
Horrendous.
Words: Hamish Kilburn
Featured Image Credit:Topics: court