A sexual predator was caught after he arranged to meet a 14-year-old girl for sex just metres away from a police station.
Daniel Boyd, 31, sent grooming messages and photos of his penis to the ‘young girl’ before arranging to meet for sex.
But when he arrived at Bromley South Station armed with condoms and lube, he found himself confronted by paedophile hunters who ran the decoy account he had been messaging.
Boyd, of Dagonet Gardens in Bromley, appeared at Woolwich Crown Court on Friday (November 3) after he pleaded guilty to meeting a girl following grooming, engaging in sexual communication with a child and attempting to cause a child to look at an image of his penis.
He was given a one-year prison sentence, suspended for two years meaning he won’t see the inside of a prison cell unless he offends again.
The facts of the case were told to the court.
On July 7 he started a Facebook conversation with what appeared to be a young girl, saying “Hey”.
The girl explained that she was 14 and Boyd told her he was 31.
He sent three photos of his penis to her, asked her to send sexual photos of herself and arranged to meet at Bromley South Station on July 18.
Boyd made it clear that the meeting was to have sex and told her to book a hotel room as he couldn’t afford it.
When he was confronted by paedophile hunters, Boyd said “this was stupid of me” and pleaded “I don’t want to go to jail”.
By 8.40pm he found himself in police handcuffs.
Defending his client in court, Tihomir Mak said Boyd was genuinely remorseful and had never been in trouble with the law before.
He added that Boyd’s difficult childhood in Jamaica and poor mental health had contributed to his offending.
Sentencing Boyd, Recorder Joshua Swirsky said: “You’re a man in your 30s who was proposing to have sex with a child of 14.
“This sort of behaviour is condemned by most people in society and in my judgement amounts to very serious criminal conduct.”
Recorder Swirsky decided that the best way of protecting the public from Boyd was to force him to engage in services to prevent future offending and to suspend his prison sentence.
“It’s quite clear that in order to protect society there needs to be some intervention to help you with your behaviour to ensure there’s no repetition of this conduct,” he said.
Boyd was ordered to attend a 60 day intervention programme, 45 days of rehabilitation and carry out 150 hours on unpaid work.
He will also have to sign the sex offender’s register for 10 years.
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