Paedophile caught by five girl decoys online
BBCA paedophile who was snared by five different decoy profiles of girls online has been given a suspended sentence.
Christopher Hellens, 34, thought he was messaging girls aged between 11 and 13 when he asked for naked pictures and made video calls while he was performing sex acts, Newcastle Crown Court heard.
He also discussed his fantasy of raping girls as young as eight, the court heard.
Hellens, from Newcastle, admitted nine offences including attempted sexual communications with a child and attempting to make a child watch a sex act. He was jailed for two years, suspended for two years, with an order to work with the probation service.
Hellens contacted the first four profiles on the Chat Avenue website in 2021 and quickly began sending sexual messages and performing sex acts during video calls, prosecutor Jordan Parkinson said.
All of the profiles were decoys set up by online child abuse hunters, the court heard.
He told one, who claimed to be 11, he "did not mind" her age and she was "so cute", the court heard, before repeatedly asking for pictures of her in underwear.
'Awareness of wrongdoing'
He asked another profile purporting to be a 13-year-old girl for photographs of her in her school uniform, and told a third he wanted her to pretend to be babysitting an eight-year-old girl for him to rape, the court heard.
After being arrested and released under investigation in 2022, he contacted another decoy profile of a girl purporting to be 12 on the same website in 2023 and again began sending sexual messages, the court heard.
When she told him her age he replied "mmm nice baby", the court heard, and later asked her to "talk dirty" and "be filthy", Parkinson said.
Police went to his home again and found a phone hidden behind his bath, the court heard.
In mitigation, the court heard Hellens had severe social isolation and mental health issues as well as numerous physical ailments.
Judge Robert Adams said Hellens' use of aliases online and concealing of his phone showed an "awareness of wrongdoing and attempt to hide detection", but he accepted the defendant had "very significant problems".
The judge said the public would best be protected if Hellens were to work intensively with the probation service to address his offending, with there being a "reasonable prospect of rehabilitation".
Hellens must also comply with a sexual harm prevention order and sign the sex offenders register for 10 years.