Richard Allan Wavell (32), of Westmount Road, is the latest paedophile to be trapped by Miss O’Connor, who has helped to catch predators by posing online as an underage boy.
She was in the Magistrate’s Court and vowed to continue her online crusade to put paedophiles away, and said that she was pleased with the sentence. ‘It is the longest handed out so far,’ she said
Wavell, who was described as a vulnerable adult, has four previous convictions for assaults on teenage boys, although they were not sexual.
On top of the jail term, Wavell was made the subject of a restraining order preventing him from being unsupervised with any boy under the age of 16 for the next five years. He also has to keep the internet history of any device he uses and hand it to police on demand. And his name will stay on the Sex Offenders’ Register for at least five years,
Police legal adviser Lauren Hallam said in court this week that on 10 January a conversation started on the gay dating website Grindr between the ‘boy’ and Wavell.
The court heard they talked for several days and that the defendant was given the opportunity to end the conversation, but persisted.
The conversation moved on to the What’s App messaging application after Wavell sent the ‘boy’ his phone number. The court also heard that Wavell had been sent a picture of a boy, which was a photo taken from a UK database.
Miss Hallam said that the pair had arranged to ‘meet’ outside the General Hospital at midday on 21 January, but that the boy did not turn up. Instead, Miss O’Connor took pictures of the defendant waiting outside the Hospital.
The court was told that the ‘boy’ informed Wavell he was held up, as he was looking after his 12-year-old brother. Wavell responded by saying he should bring his brother to the house and that the younger boy could wait in another room. Wavell told police this meant he wanted to have sex with the older boy while the other waited in another room.
Miss Hallam said that the defendant went on to make several attempts to arrange to meet the boy at other times before his arrest on 24 January.
Advocate James Bell, defending, submitted that no child was ever going to be assaulted and that the only evidence was solicited by Miss O’Connor pretending to be a child.
He said that the States police had issued a statement discouraging people from acting as vigilantes and that the police did not work with vigilante groups.
He highlighted that, in this case, when Miss O’Connor pretended to be a child, ‘she had caught a man who himself was a vulnerable person’.
‘Both probation and a psychologist assess him as vulnerable. He suffers from extreme social anxiety,’ said the lawyer
He submitted that a community service sentence would be appropriate, as the defendant had been behind bars since 25 January. ‘The remand in custody for him has been difficult. I suggest he has already received a meaningful punishment,’ he said.
However, in sentencing, Assistant Magistrate Peter Harris said that Wavell’s previous offending ‘contrasts Mr Wavell with all of the other recent cases’.
He highlighted that there was a ‘very significant risk of reoffending’ when it came to behaviours that were sexually motivated. He also said that Wavell’s record meant he could not avoid handing down a custodial sentence.
