Latest Offenders Wiltshire

Description

A former Devizes mayor who sexually abused a boy repeatedly during the 1970s was jailed for three years today.

Timothy Price, 57, of Waiblingen Way, Devizes, was found guilty of four counts of indecent assault and one of indecency with a child at Salisbury Crown Court on January 22.

Sentencing Price, Recorder Edward Burgess said: It was only a matter of time before the dark secret of what you had done to [the victim] was broken.

He added: It was a shame you did not have the decency to spare [the victim] the pain of a trial by pleading guilty.

Price, who has terminal prostate cancer, has just 12 months to live so may now die in prison.

A GPs report said going to prison would make it difficult for him to undergo successful treatment.

Recorder Burgess said his sentence was very considerably shorter than it would have been if Price had been in good health.

Prosecuting, Matthew Scott read from the victims impact statement, which said: I have spent most of my life pretending to myself I was not subject to the most horrendous sexual abuse.

I shut the disgusting memories of the things he made me do in a box inside my head.

A separate charge of possessing indecent images was ordered to lie on file.

Representing Price, Stephen Dent said his client had been very young at the time and had been experimenting with his sexuality.

He added that Price never forced his victim to comply.

It does have all the hallmarks of teenage sexual exploration, the problem being, of course, that one party was seven years older than the other, he said.

Mr Dent said Price had done a great deal of good public work and had enjoyed the respect of the community.

This is a tremendous fall from grace for him, he added.

Price was 16 and the boy, from Durrington, was nine when the five years of abuse started.

The victim, who cannot be named for legal reasons, broke a 34-year silence when he confronted Price by email in August 2013.

Price responded an hour later, admitting and appologising for his crimes, but later denied them in court.

The judge said Price mentally tortured and bullied his victim to comply with his selfish sexual demands.

Description

A convicted sex fiend caught by so-called "paedophile hunters" is behind bars after he admitted travelling more than 300 miles to try to meet up with 14-year-old girl.

Roger Lee, who previously got a 12-year-old pregnant and was branded a danger to children, thought he was chatting to a teenage girl called Rebecca over the internet, but it was a pair of online vigilantes.

The pervert sent naked pictures of himself and "couldn't get to Newcastle" - 310 miles from his Basingstoke home - "fast enough" after "the girl" said she was being left home alone when her mum went away.

But Lee, 45, was filmed by the duo who call themselves Dark Justice when he turned up at the city's Millennium Bridge.

At Newcastle Crown Court, he admitted attempting to meet a child following sexual grooming through website Badoo and was jailed two years and four months.

Judge Sean Morris said: You entered into a conversation with them on the internet and they pretended the female was 14 and you went for it.

You arranged to come to Newcastle from Basingstoke to have sexual intercourse with a 14-year-old child. That is extremely serious.

There was in fact no child involved at all, which limits the category into which your offending falls.

That will be quite difficult for some people to understand and I dont blame them.

Im firmly of the view that you are a dangerous individual to young children.

The court heard Lee, using the moniker ForHire, contacted Rebecca in October on Badoo, which is meant for over 18s.

Prosecutor Tim Gittins said: "These men, who describe themselves as undercover journalists, worked together in order to set up a sting operation to identify and catch paedophiles.

"They set up a false female profile on internet website Badoo. It is meant for over 18s but once he contacted her she indicated she was only 14.

"He stated he liked young girls and had previously had a relationship with a female aged 12.

"The messages continued over several days and began to become sexually explicit, at the defendants instigation and he sent a picture of his penis.

"She then said her mum was going away on October 8 and he couldnt get up here fast enough."

Lee arranged to meet Rebecca at the Millenium Bridge at 9am on October 9.

Mr Gittins said: "He was confronted by the two men, who were recording the confrontation.

"Not surprisingly, he realised that the game was up and immediately fled the scene.

"The two men reported the matter immediately to the police."

After running off, Lee sent a text message saying he was going to kill himself before being arrested on the A1 heading south.

Lee, of Pewsey Road, Rushall, Pewsey, Wiltshire, was also given an extended licence until 2020, a sexual offences prevention order, and must sign the sex offender register indefinitely.

The court heard he was convicted of having sex with a 12-year-old girl who he got pregnant in 1998.

Andrew Walker, defending, said: "This was not entrapment but it was a set up, it was a sting operation. That means there was no child anywhere near this offence or this offender. This was a website for adults and it was not even a dating website, although it was used for those purposes.

Clearly the objective of the young men on the other side was to perpetuate the conversation and give him the opportunity to propose the activity in the way he did.