Anthony Morgan, a 51-year-old married father was caught trying to groom a child by vigilante paedophile hunters.
According to Metro UK, Anthony Morgan believed he had been chatting to a 13-year-old schoolgirl online but was actually duped by Dark Justice – a group that trawls the web to expose people looking for vulnerable children.
When confronted, Morgan told paedophile hunters, ‘I am talking to my wife if you don’t mind’ after turning up under the impression he was meeting a child for an illegal sexual encounter.
The man arranged to meet the ‘teen’ but was instead greeted by members of the group. When confronted he denied he had done anything wrong, telling them he was speaking to his wife on the phone.
Morgan, of Shiremoor, North Tyneside, had engaged in graphic sexual chat over Whatsapp and asked to exchange illicit pictures with the account he believed to be a child.
When a meeting was arranged he said ‘it would be a waste of time going to meet her if there wasn’t going to be something on offer’.
Morgan told the fake 13-year-old’s profile that she was ‘too shy’.
In a bid to cover his tracks, Morgan asked for his number to be deleted from the girl’s phone before they met and said people might call him a ‘paedo’.
When he turned up at Newcastle city centre to meet his victim in August 2015, with a condom in his wallet, he was confronted by Dark Justice and then arrested by the police.
Prosecutor David Lamb said: ‘Their conversations were examined. The Crown say there is a clear pattern of sexual grooming in conversations between the two of them.
‘Following his arrest, he was searched and, while in police custody, a condom was removed by the police from his wallet.’
Morgan pleaded guilty to attempting to meet a child following sexual grooming at Newcastle Crown Court.
Judge Amanda Rippon jailed him for 21 months and said he must sign the s*x offenders register for ten years.
Morgan was ordered to abide by the terms of a sexual harm prevention order for the rest of his life.
The judge told him: ‘Although this is an attempt because the girl was not real, you actually travelled to meet her and if she had been real I have no doubt, having read every single word of the chat logs, you would have committed a sexual offence against her.
‘You made it plain it would have been a waste of your time unless something sexual was forthcoming.’
Jonathan Devlin, defending, said Morgan has family commitments which include him being carer for his adult son. He has no previous history of sexual offending.
Below are some of the messages he sent to the girl:
