North Hykeham man sentenced for child sex offences

A man who exchanged sexual messages with several people he thought were children has been sentenced at court.

Paul Scott of Malton Road in North Hykeham, shared indecent images, encouraged others to send explicit photos and asked if they would engage in sexual activity if they met up last March.

The 52-year-old had these conversations under the assumption the people he was talking to were children.

But he was later confronted by a group who revealed he had been exchanging messages with ‘decoys’ instead.

Scott admitted to six separate sexual charges relating to children when he appeared at Lincoln Crown Court on Thursday, 18 April.

He admitted to attempting to engage in sexual communication with a child, attempting to cause a child to watch a sexual act and attempting to arrange the commission of a child sex offence.

Scott also pleaded guilty to a second charge of attempting to engage in sexual communications with a child.

Additionally, he pleaded guilty to attempting to cause a child to watch and/or look at an image of sexual activity and tried to facilitate the commission of a sexual activity with a child.

He was given a 20-month prison sentence, suspended for two years and has also been told to –

• Complete 150 hours of compulsory unpaid work for the community. If he is in employment, he will have to undertake the community work in his own time.
• Participate in specified rehabilitation activities for 40 sessions. 
• Be supervised by the Probation Service for a rehabilitation period of 2 years. 

Failure to comply with any part of a community order will result in the case being referred back to court.

The courts have a range of ways in which they can deal with the failure. These include re-sentencing for the original offences or a fine.

Scott will be the subject of a sexual harm prevention order for 10 years and have to fine the sexual offences register for 10 years. 

He will also have to pay a surcharge of £187 and pay costs of £350.