A 46-year-old man has pleaded guilty to a charge of ‘attempted sexual communication with a child’ in a ‘decoy’ case.
Lee Sheffield, with an address listed as Tandragee Road in Portadown, committed the offence between October 29 and November 7 in 2023, according to his charge sheet.
A prosecutor told an earlier hearing at Craigavon Magistrates’ Court the defendant had no record.
The defendant was at the court on February 28 which heard it was a “decoy” case involving a person posing as a “14-year-old child”.
A defence barrister said the decoy had been “very careful” as to “how they set things out”. He added: “They followed the case and they don’t take the running in his case”.
That prompted District Judge Michael Ranaghan to say: “Unlike some of the vigilante groups, this was dealt with properly”.
The barrister said: “Certain of these groups are pretty well schooled on how they actually go about it according to PACE (Police and Criminal Evidence) law. If they were to make the running they would be falling foul of entrapment. The agent provocateur in this case obviously didn’t do that”.
Judge Ranaghan said: “The main job of the court is to stop this type of disgusting behaviour and the best way to do that is not a few months in Maghaberry (Prison), it is to get to the root of the problem by way of other things and then add a layer of direct punishment”.
He added: “It is an offence which carries a considerable concern for everybody in society not just those with children. The job of any court is to stop this type of thing happening again”.
The judge said “risk” would need to be assessed by Probation.
The case was adjourned to April 11 for a pre-sentence report.
