Matthew James Colvin has been given an 18-month jail term suspended for two years
A man in his 40s had highly sexualised conversations with a person he believed to be a girl aged 15 – but it turned out to be an online vigilante.
Matthew James Colvin had admitted attempting to groom an under-aged girl for sexual purposes, but later claimed he had been put under pressure to plead guilty, Mold Crown Court heard.
He even wrote to former Prime Minister David Cameron at one stage complaining about the activities of the vigilante after it turned out that it was not a girl at all but a grown man he was speaking to.
Colvin, 44, of Harwood Road in Brymbo, Wrexham, previously failed to withdraw his guilty plea.
Today (Friday), his barrister Gwen Henshaw said her client did not accept his guilt but accepted the court decision.
He received an 18 month prison sentence suspended for two years with 40 days rehabilitation.
Judge Niclas Parry ordered him to register with the police as a sex offender for 10 years and a 10-year sexual harm prevention order was made.
Prosecuting barrister Brett Williamson said that Mr Richard Teszke was targeting those on the internet who would want to involve themselves in sexualised conversations with children and making arrangements to meet up.
He posted a social media profile in the name of Jennie but she did not exist. “She was a fiction,” Mr Williamson explained.
The man posed as a girl in conversations with Colvin over a four-day period.
He first messaged her at 2am in April last year, asking how she was.
“She” responded by saying “Sorry, I am 15, so probably too young for you.”
There followed a series of exchanges, but innocuous pleasantries often turned sexual.
He asked her if she was still a virgin, asked her personal questions of a sexual nature, and he exchanged text messages with her about music, computer games but at all times returning to sex.
It was established where “she” lived and tried to meet up. When obstacles were put in his way he would suggest alternatives and at one stage said she could be his birthday present.
Mr Teszke got in touch with the police, Colvin was traced and admitted engaging in conversation with the profile but said he would not have visited her and would not have done anything sexual.
The defendant told how he was separated from his wife at the time and the messages were providing some sort of social comfort to him.
Miss Henshaw said the defendant did not accept the case against him and said that there was no suggestion that he posed a danger to children.
Judge Parry warned Colvin that it was important he accepted the chance he was now giving him.
If he did not, then the suspended sentence would be activated and he would go to prison.
Judge Parry told him: “At a very low ebb in your life when you were very depressed, effectively ill and lonely and in drink, you fell to temptation.
“You acted entirely out of character. But what you did was to embark upon a very dangerous course of conduct.
“Had you gone on to do the things that were being described, then the sentence would have been one of five years.
“You will understand that if men do that to children, then they deserve it,” he said.
But in his case, there was no contact, and crucially there was no victim.
“This was talk,” he said.
“But this law is there to protect children. That is why it is viewed seriously.”
http://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/online-vigilante-snared-wrexham-pervert-12450947#rlabs=1%20rt$sitewide%20p$17
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