December 2020

Pervert Murphy snared by Northern Ireland paedo hunter group is jailed

A pervert who was snared by a paedophile hunter group after he sent explicit images to what he believed was a 15-year-old boy has been jailed for four months.

But Stephen Murphy walked free after being sentenced for attempted child grooming at Lisburn Magistrates Court on Thursday because of time spent on remand since his arrest.

Sentencing the 47-year-old Lisburn man, District Judge Rosie Watters said given the maximum sentence she could impose was six months, she believed child grooming cases should be sent to the Crown Court.

She said that before current legislation came into force, she could send a case to the more powerful Crown Court where the maximum sentence is 10 years but now “this court doesn’t have a choice.”

At an earlier hearing Murphy, with an address at Killaney Avenue, confessed to attempting to sexually groom a child on July 27 this year.

He had also been charged with attempting to sexually communicate with a child but that was left on the books by the prosecution.

The charges arose after Murphy was challenged by a group called Parents Against Paedophiles NI. A video of Murphy being quizzed in his home by group members has been viewed over 200,000 times.

In court on Thursday, a prosecuting lawyer outlined how police were called by the group with one of their members telling the cops how he had posed as a 15-year-old boy exchanging messages with Murphy.

During those exchanges, the court heard, Murphy sent the decoy an image of his penis and made arrangements for what he believed was an underage teenage boy to come to his house for sexual activity.

During police questioning Murphy admitted what he had done and that he had sent indecent images of himself, conceding that he “didn’t know what he was thinking.” He has now split from his partner and child and cannot go back to Lisburn.

Jailing Murphy, District Judge Watters also ordered him to sign the police sex offenders register for seven years and made him the subject of a five-year Sexual Offences Prevention Order.

March 2020

Coleraine man ‘snared’ by paedophile hunters given three years probation

A pervert who thought he was having sexually explicit chats with three young teenagers but was communicating with members of a so-called paedophile hunters group walked free from court after he was ordered to complete a three year probation order.

Harold Samuel Burke (60) appeared at Antrim Crown Court.

Judge Donna McColgan QC warned him however that if there is “any breach whatsoever, and I mean any breach, you will be brought back before me and you will be sentenced to a custodial sentence.”

As well as the probation order, the judge also imposed a lifelong Sexual Offences Prevention Order.

The case against Burke is a legal first in the Northern Ireland justice system as it is the first time that a case investigated by paedophile hunters has been dealt with in the Crown Court.

At an earlier hearing Burke, from the Quilly Road in Coleraine, entered guilty pleas to three counts if attempting to incite a child to engage in sexual activity on dates between June 25 and July 22 2018.

Opening the case prosecuting counsel Mark Farrell told the court how three paedophile hunters from a group calling themselves Decoys Central and using the monikers Fiona, Zoe and Angel, created fake online profiles where they pretended to be 13 and 14-year-old girls.

Calling himself “Hal,” Burke “instigated conversations with who he believed were under-age girls “ said the lawyer adding that when the group reported the offences to the PSNI, they produced transcripts of “sexually explicit conversations with the decoys.”

Describing the online chats as “extremely sexualised and extremely explicit,” Mr Farrell recounted how the conversations followed a basic modus operandi where Burke told the ‘girls’ they would have a “fantastic experience” before directing them to undress on how to perform sex acts on themselves.

In relation to conversations with ‘Zoe,’ the court heard that Burke was “asking to meet her for sex” and Mr Farrell submitted that a feature of the explicit chats was “an element of a degree of recruitment where the defendant asks the decoy, or underage girl, to try to recruit others to create, I suppose, a network.”

There was also, he further submitted, a “certain amount of pre-planning” as well as grooming by Burke who has a previous conviction for having indecent images of children.

Mr Farrell told the court given the nature of the investigations, “it’s a rather unusual case” but that the features of grooming, “recruitment” and Burke’s previous conviction aggravated the case.

The guilty pleas however were a mitigating factor, conceded the lawyer adding that while there was no victim as such, “it’s a serious matter.”

Judge McColgan, who told the court it was the first so-called paedophile hunter case to reach the Crown Court, said while the offences did “cross the custody threshold….he was mindful of the fact that he had served seven months in custody on remand.

“On the basis that he is prepared to engage with probation, I will give him a probation order for the maximum period I can pass which is three years,” said the judge.