A PAEDOPHILE who travelled from Hull to Caerphilly in an attempt to meet who he thought was a 12-year-old girl for sex in a Morrisons car park was jailed before he could cause “serious harm” to members of the public, a judge said.
Mark Lenthall, 53, was arrested by officers on July 10 last year in Caerphilly, where he had driven around 250 miles from Kingston-Upon-Hull to meet an undercover officer who was posing as a young girl.
When he was arrested, he was found with a tablet which contained more than 2,800 indecent images of children - with some as young as four, as well as a sex toy he had purchased for the ‘girl’.
At Cardiff Crown Court on Friday, Judge Timothy Petts jailed Lenthall for eight years, saying that he posed a “significant risk to members of the public”.
“You contacted her in July last year and quickly engaged in graphic messages and voice calls.
“You were arrested with items you planned to use in your perverse plans.
“[The tablet] was found to have a huge number of very disturbing images. Some of the worst images involved very young children in distress.
“You have attempted to engage in sexual communication with children – an uncover officer in this case. It is clear the efforts you made to meet up with this ’12-year-old girl’.
“It is clear in my view that you do pose a significant risk to members of the public of causing serious harm.”
Prosecutor Thomas Stanway told Cardiff Crown Court Lenthall, of Sherburn Street in Hull, openly admitted to the ‘girl’ that he was a paedophile.
“He said ‘I am a naughty man. Do you know what a paedophile is?’,” said Mr Stanway, recounting one conversation Lenthall had with the undercover officer.
“He could be heard masturbating on the call.”
When arranging to meet the ‘girl’, Lenthall “included in the conversation that she should not tell her friends,” Mr Stanway told the court.
“He stated that he loved her. He said ‘I might just kidnap you and bring you with me’.”
“It is clear from the psychiatric report that Mr Lenthall recognises that he has a problem and he wants to do something about it,” said Andrew Kendall, defending.
“Mr Lenthall suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder having served in the armed forces, and has seen some horrific things.”
However, Mr Kendall stressed there was not a direct link between this and Lenthall’s offending.
“Mr Lenthall is 53 years of age and has never been in trouble before 2017,” he said.
“He is clearly someone who is not well.”
Lenthall admitted attempting to meet a girl under 16 following grooming; attempting to coerce or incite a child under 13 to engage in sexual activity; three charges of attempting to engage in sexual communication with a child; attempting to get a child to watch or look at an image of sexual activity; breach of sexual harm prevention order; three charges of possession of indecent images of a child; three charges of distribution of indecent images of a child; and one charge of possessing extreme pornography.
Judge Petts jailed Lenthall for a total of eight years, with a further five years to be served on licence.
He also imposed a new sexual harm prevention order upon him, and Lenthall will have to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life.
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article