Internet paedophile jailed

A paedophile branded a 'predator' by a judge has been jailed for five years after using the Internet to lure a schoolgirl to his home for sex.

A paedophile branded a 'predator' by a judge has been jailed for five years after using the Internet to lure a schoolgirl to his home for sex.

Depraved Patrick Green, 33, met the 13-year-old through a cyberspace chat room he logged on to over a number of months.

The exports clerk told his unsuspecting victim he was a 15-year-old boy during their e-mail courtship.

He sent her lewd images of himself and messages saying: "I believe the way we feel about each other will mean we will always stay together - I am lucky to have you in my life."

Green, of Iver Heath, Bucks, was eventually arrested in Cumbria on his way to meet a 14-year-old girl he had also met on the Internet and had arranged to spend the weekend with.

The divorcee pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to two counts of indecent assault, four counts of unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor and one count of attempted unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor. Green had also admitted eight counts of possessing indecent photographs of children. He has no previous convictions.

Prosecutor Robert Bernard Spencer told Aylesbury Crown Court: "From an early stage he was communicating with her in a deliberate and calculated manner and following what the Crown say was a thoroughly corrupting course of action.

"He was exciting and encouraging her to become a willing sexual partner and participant."

The court heard Green, who worked for a Heathrow export company in Slough, Berks, made contact with his young victim in February over the world wide web in a chat room specifically aimed at older men for younger women.

After a succession of e-mails and meetings over the Internet, he lured her to his home, having picked her up from a nearby railway station, and abused her.

They continued to meet weekly for almost a month before his victim told her mother what had been happening.

Judge Christopher Tyrer said Green was a 'predator', and added: "The victim of your sexual offences was a child, she was naive and vulnerable to predators like you.

"She was a virgin, she had no previous boyfriends or sexual partners or experience. You engaged her interest through an Internet chat room in a deliberate and premeditated course of conduct.

"You wormed your way into her affection and confidence and then targeted her for your sexual gratification.

"Children are encouraged to use the Internet for educational purposes. Their curiosity is bound to lead them to explore sites they should avoid.

"Those who exploit children like the way you do should expect serious sentences should you exploit them. This was premeditated, persistent and determined."

After the hearing, the victim's parents, who cannot be named for legal reasons, said: "We believe the judge was right to give this man a longer than average sentence.

"As parents, no sentence seems long enough, when this man took away from our daughter something that can never be given back. We hope that no other family has to go through what we did, and hope that this sentence will send out a clear message to men who are thinking about exploiting young girls through the Internet."

Thames Valley Police, who led the investigation to track Green, issued a statement after the hearing welcoming the sentence.

It read: "This is the first time that somebody convicted of these offences has used the Internet to meet his victims and this sentence should send a strong message to other offenders.

"Even though the technology used is still fairly new, the police do have the ability to use this same technology to gather evidence against offenders and use this to help prosecute them."