A JUDGE has begged parents to check their daughters’ internet activity after hearing how an Ammanford paedophile persuaded teenage girls to send him naked photographs of themselves.
Thomas William Cannon, aged 32, even talked one into performing a sex act on herself and filming herself for him.
Judge Geraint Walters told Swansea crown court, “This is a lesson for all of us.
“Parents’ obligations include keeping an eye on their internet activity.
“It is not a bad thing if they take an interest in what their children are doing on the internet.”
He was speaking after hearing how Cannon carried on offending despite being cornered in a car park by vigilantes.
Cannon, of Parklands. was jailed for five years for a string of sex offences against underage girls.
Robin Rouch, prosecuting, told the court how Cannon joined an internet chat room and connected with a “Laura, aged 15.”
“Laura” was a decoy invented by a group of paedophile hunters, but Cannon exchanged more than 2,000 messages with “her,” many of them sexual.
Cannon sent “Laura” photographs of his penis and eventually arranged to meet her at the McDonald’s in Cross Hands, intending or hoping, said Mr Rouch, to have sexual intercourse with her.
He was pounced upon by vigilantes.
Mr Rouch said Cannon was arrested for attempting to entice an underage girl to engage in sexual activity. Police removed a computer from his home and discovered he had downloaded indecent images of children.
Despite not being ‘scared when the police came knocking‘, Cannon set about a second series of offences.
Mr Rouch said he joined a different chat room, posted a story of a sexual nature and waited to see who responded.
Then he filtered out the girls aged 14 and 15–this time real people–and began messaging five of them.
He managed to persuade a 14-year-old girl to send him photographs of her private parts and to insert a foreign object into her vagina.
Judge Geraint Walters said that would ‘hit her, and hit her hard‘ when she was older.
Judge Walters, one of the most senior judges in Swansea, said in his experience the regret and shame later felt by a female who behaved like that when a teenager could be life-changing.
Cannon admitted a total of 13 offences, all of them sexual and involving underage girls.
Defence barrister James Hartson said Cannon had been ‘blisteringly frank‘ with the police and recognised that he needed help.
Judge Walters issued a Sexual Harm Prevention Order, restricting his access to young girls and the internet, and told him to register with the police as a sex offender, both orders to run indefinitely.
The confrontation with the paedophile hunters should have ‘scared him senseless‘ but instead he carried on offending regardless.
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