A SOCIAL media predator from Chagford has been sent on a sex offenders’ course after he arranged to meet a 15-year-old girl after exchanging online messages.
Joseph Bint was caught by a police undercover operation after he discussed having sex with a girl of 11 in a chatroom on the same website.
Police traced him to his home in Chagford through his IP address and discovered he had been in contact with other, apparently real girls in the previous months.
He arranged to meet one 15-year-old girl in Plymouth and suggested they go to a hotel together but she offered to perform a sex act in his car instead.
The messages ended at this point so police were unable to find out what happened, although Bint told them the conversations were pure fantasy.
The 15-year-old sent him five naked pictures of herself and police also found messages to a Kik user who claimed to be 11.
He asked another girl who gave her age as 15 if she was interested in exchanging images. Police found a small number of images of girls aged about 12 to 15 on his phone.
Van driver Bint, aged 24, of Rushford Forge, Chagford, admitted three counts of possession of indecent images of children and two of sexual communications with a child when he appeared at Exeter Crown Court.
He was jailed for eight months, suspended for two years, sent on a 35 session sex offenders’ treatment programme, and ordered to do 25 days of rehabilitation activities by Judge Timothy Rose at Exeter Crown Court.
He was ordered to pay £425 costs, put on the sex offenders’ register for ten years and made subject of a sexual harm prevention order which will enable the police to monitor his future use of the internet.
The judge told him that the sex offenders’ course represented the best way of protecting the public and stopping him re-offending.
Mr Herc Ashworth, prosecuting, said Bint made contact through Kik with an undercover officer who was posing as a paedophile who had an 11-year-old daughter.
Bint told him his sexual preference was for girls aged eight to 14 and discussed meeting with the intention of abusing the daughter. He was traced by his IP address and the other offences came to light when police examined his two phones.
He had sent some images in Kik conversations and received five unsolicited ones from the 15-year-old girl in Plymouth shortly after making contact with her for the first time.
He denied having a sexual interest in children and said he was exploring the boundaries of what was possible on social media.
Miss Rachel Smith, defending, said Bint has stayed out of trouble in the three years that these cases have taken to come to court and is keen to work with probation to address his behaviour.
He has been assessed as a good prospect for rehabilitation and as being unlikely to re-offend if he undertakes the courses which have been