Keelan Cooper 22

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South Essex delivery driver jailed for online child sex offences

A delivery driver from Benfleet has been jailed after engaging in sexual online chats with people he believed were underage girls.

Keelan Cooper, 22, of Avondale Road, Benfleet, pleaded guilty at Basildon Crown Court to two charges of attempting to sexually communicate with a child and one count of attempting to cause or incite a girl aged 13 to 15 to engage in penetrative sexual activity.

In August 2025, Cooper, using the name Tom, added a decoy calling herself Jessica on the Say Hi app and moved the conversation to WhatsApp. When she said she was “nearly 13,” he told her he had a foot fetish and asked: “I was wondering if you had any bare feet pics please?”

Two months later, in October, using the name Bob, he contacted a second decoy, Olivia, who said she was 14. He again requested bare feet pictures, praised the image she sent, then asked if she ever got “horny” and talked her through performing a sex act on herself. He also asked if she had seen a penis and suggested trading genital photos. The chat lasted two days and ran to 54 pages when printed.

Both “girls” were online vigilante paedophile hunters. After the second exchange they confronted Cooper at his home and called Essex Police.

Defence barrister Alfred Underwood sought a suspended sentence, citing Cooper’s degenerative hereditary mobility condition, lack of previous convictions, and the sudden death of his father from bowel cancer in February 2025, which left him in a “particularly low place.” Cooper had lost his previous job after arrest but later secured full-time work delivering car parts. He had withdrawn from social media, and the defence argued there was a realistic prospect of rehabilitation.

Prosecutor Robert Colover outlined the facts. The probation service assessed Cooper as a medium risk of future sexual offending and of causing serious harm to female children. He denied any sexual attraction to children and offered no explanation for his actions.

Judge Shane Collery KC refused to suspend the sentence. “I have real concerns that it would send the wrong message out, that if you do this not just once but twice, the courts will be lenient,” he said. “In my judgement, it is not correct to suspend the sentence.”

He added: “We need to remember here that we are not dealing with an isolated incident. In my view, that does make a difference. There is a real public concern at such incidents and to see it on two separate occasions really raises that concern.”

Cooper was sentenced to 30 months in prison.