May 2008

Pervert drove 100 miles for sex session with schoolgirl

A PAEDOPHILE who abused a 14-year-old girl he met on the Internet has been jailed.

Karl Molloy, aged 35, of Thorn Road, Runcorn, was sentenced to two-and-a-half years after he admitted meeting a girl after sexual grooming, possession of 14 indecent images of a child and three counts of sexual activity with a child.

Lincoln Crown Court heard how the Molloy met the girl, of Lincoln, on social network site Faceparty.

After they began chatting, Molloy persuaded her to text indecent pictures of herself after she claimed to be 16.

However, Molloy agreed to drive more than 100 miles to meet the girl at a train station in Lincoln – two weeks after she admitted her real age. They drove to a field and engaged in various sexual acts for four hours.

The court was told how Molloy’s girlfriend had reported him to the police after finding an image of the girl on his computer.

Months later the girl confessed to a teacher she had been seeing a “much older” man she met on the Internet.

She admitted they had met and had “everything but” sex in his Ford Mondeo.

Michael Davis, defending, said Molloy had not been trawling the Internet looking for under-age girls and initially believed she was 16.

“There may have been some moral issues around men in their late 30s seeking to make sexual contact with girls in their late teens, but that is a question of personal moral judgement,” he said.

“If this girl had indeed been 16 there would have been no offence.

“The indecent images he had were all of this girl, which she had sent.

“He had not gone trawling the Internet for paedophile websites, which are freely available on the Internet.”

However, Judge Michael Heath said a prison sentence was the only option.

He said: “You knew her age and you still made that long journey from your home to Lincoln knowing that she was a schoolgirl of 14 and you were a man of 34.”

DCI Glen Harris, head of Lincolnshire Police’s public protection unit, urged parents to remain vigilant when their child uses the Internet.

“A worrying amount of youngsters do post pictures and personal information about themselves on sites.

“It is vital that parents use the proper parental controls on computers and check Internet histories regularly to see what sites their children are going on.”