Hartlepool pervert caught in internet vigilante sting after talking to '13-year-old girl'

Using two aliases Paul Woolston, 45, made contact with the ‘girl’ on a dating app called Fast Meet and suggested meeting at his flat.

But he was actually talking to a member of the Child Online Safety Team (COST) who later confronted him.

Woolston pleaded guilty to attempting to engage in sexual communication with a child when he appeared at Teesside Crown Court for sentence on Wednesday, October 14.

The child decoy appeared on Fast Meet using the name Layla Hardy in April last year. Woolston made contact calling himself Single Polite And Friendly and another more explicit alias.

Prosecutor Paul Abrahams said: “The conversation was sexualised from the outset and it was made clear right from the outset that the person alleged to be Layla Hardy was saying they were 13 years of age.

"It delves straight into effectively suggestions of penetrative sexual activity. The defendant was the person using the alias.”

He suggested meeting up at his flat and that the girl switch to the more secure platform WhatsApp.

The conversations stopped and another decoy posing as a 24-year-old contacted Woolston through WhatsApp to arrange to meet on the pretext of exchanging a parcel.

The group turned up and called the police when he was arrested.

The court heard Woolston was left feeling isolated following the traumatic breakdown of his marriage and he had no similar offences on his record.

It was said he is willing to take part in a sex offender treatment programme to try to prevent further offending.

Woolston, of Cornwall Street, Hartlepool, was given a 30-month community order, ordered to take the programme, do 120 hours unpaid work and up to 20 probation rehabilitation days.

He was also put on the sex offenders register for five years and made the subject of a Sexual Harm Prevention Order.

The Recorder of Middlesbrough, Judge Paul Watson QC, said: "I do feel this is a case where I can step back from an immediate sentence of custody.

“You have lost your good name and I’m quite satisfied you have learned a very harsh lesson from all of this.”

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