South Shields pervert thought he was having online sex chat with girl, 13 - not undercover cop

Christopher Bullock, 39, began talking to the 'teen' on the Kik app before the conversation took on a sexual nature which included a "question and answer" style game.

Prosecutor Rachel Glover told Newcastle Crown Court: "An undercover police officer joined the messaging application Kik and created a profile of a girl aged 13-years-old.

"She initially received three messages from a profile with the username Chris Bull.

"It was, however, on the fourth attempt by the defendant on the 2nd of September 2019 the conversation followed.

"The defendant told her he was 36-years-old from Newcastle and that he worked as a delivery driver and she subsequently informed him she was 13.

"During the conversation the defendant said he would like to see her breasts and asked her whether if she lived closer would she like to meet up and have sex.

"Officers were able to locate the defendant as being the person responsible for this username and was arrested at his home and devices were seized for examination."

Ms Glover told the court that a hard-drive was found to contain one category A indecent image of a child, eight category B images and eight in category C which had been obtained between July 2017 and June 2019.

Bullock, of Whitehall Street, in South Shields, had no previous convictions before pleading guilty to attempting to engage in sexual communication with a child and three counts of making indecent images of children.

Gavin Doig, defending, told the court: "It is a very unpleasant offence of course but fortunately it was a single conversation rather than multiple conversations charged under a single count.

"Defendants such as this defendant need assistance with understanding the error of their ways."

Mr Recorder Ian Mullarkey sentenced Bullock to ten months imprisonment, suspended for two years, after he began chatting to the profile in 2019.

The judge told him: "Plainly this is serious offending.

"The most serious aspect of the offending is your willingness to engage in a conversation of a sexual nature with somebody you believed to be a 13-year-old girl."

However, the judge was willing to give him the opportunity to address his issues and attached a sex offending behaviour programme and rehabilitation days to be completed.