Jason Bushell Sutton, of Grande Route des Sablons, Grouville, used gay dating website Grindr to try to arrange to meet what he thought was a 15-year-old boy in the toilets at Patriotic Street car park.
But he had actually been communicating with Cheyenne O’Connor – a 24-year-old online vigilante who was posing as the teenager.
As Sutton waited at the meeting point, Miss O’Connor took covert pictures of the married 48-year-old and later handed them, along with transcripts of their online conversation, to the police. He was arrested a short time later.
Sutton pleaded guilty to attempted sexual grooming and was this week jailed for ten months, banned from being alone with any boy aged under 16 for five years and placed on the Sex Offenders Register.
He is the second Islander to be caught by Miss O’Connor, who earlier this year snared a teenager who was trying to meet a teenage girl.
During this week’s case, the Magistrate’s Court heard that Sutton made numerous inappropriate remarks to the ‘boy’ online and made it clear he wanted to meet for a sexual encounter.
He had also asked the youngster to wear tracksuit bottoms for the meeting, which prosecutor Susie Sharpe said was ‘to secure quick and easy sexual contact’.
Miss Sharpe said that during the exchanges the ‘boy’ told the defendant he was still at school and was not 16 until the following September.
‘The exchange escalates quite quickly into suggestions to meet and to engage in sexual activity. Not just to meet at the location but to meet in the toilets of that location. A boy did not turn up, but a member of the public who had instigated the communication did and took a photograph of him,’ she said.
Sutton was arrested on 24 October and made immediate admissions.
Advocate Sue Pearmain, defending, said that her client was caught by a ‘sting’ set up by the woman that took place over three days on a Monday, Tuesday and a Wednesday.
She said that it was on the Tuesday that the person doing the communicating told the defendant that the ‘boy’ was 15 and would not be 16 for nearly a year. By this time, Advocate Pearmain said, a photograph of the ‘boy’ had been sent and added: ‘The photograph was like the apple in the Garden of Eden. The temptation was too much.’
The lawyer submitted that Sutton had been drinking to excess at that time ‘and it was while he was drinking to excess he succumbed to temptation’.
She told the court that Sutton’s long-term partner was standing by him and it was their intention to sell the house they have in Jersey and move back to the UK after 20 years in the Island.
The court heard that the defendant had a responsible job which he had now lost, was a first-time offender and was assessed as being at relatively low risk of reoffending.
She said that Sutton had excellent references from his employer and had been in a stable 26-year relationship with his civil partner.
In sentencing, Relief Magistrate David Le Cornu said: ‘There is substantial mitigation, you are of previous good character and you have shown remorse was well as having excellent work references but I am afraid none of these are sufficient for me to avoid a custodial sentence.
‘You carried on with
the communication after you found out the “boy” was under age and you
even arranged to go and meet him.’
