Ammanford man jailed for online child sex offences

A man who sent sexual videos and messages to what he believed were teenage girls has been jailed after being caught by paedophile hunters.

Devon Wildgust contacted two profiles on social media platform Connect2.me in November this year, unaware he was chatting to decoy accounts being run by adult volunteers.

Swansea Crown Court heard the 22-year-old messaged the first decoy on November 16 and despite being told the ‘girl’ was 13, he continued the conversation and swapped phone numbers before moving to WhatsApp.

The conversation soon turned sexual, with Wildgust telling the ‘girl’ he could teach her how to take nude photographs. He sent a picture of a naked woman and told her to take a picture like it, before sending a video of himself masturbating.

When the decoy sent a picture supposedly showing the ‘girl’ in her school uniform, he replied: “I wish I could rip that uniform off and make love to you.”

Wildgust also told the decoy he had been “playing with” a friend’s little sister, though he later told police he had “made it up”.

Three days later, Wildgust contacted a second decoy profile on the same app. Just 17 minutes after making contact, he sent a video of himself masturbating.

When told she was 14, he asked: “Do you like older men?” He then requested nude pictures and asked to see her boobs. When she replied that her mum had told her never to send pictures, Wildgust replied that her mother didn’t have to know.

Members of a paedophile hunter group went to the defendant’s house in Ammanford on November 22 and detained him before calling police. Wildgust was arrested and his phone was seized, but he refused to reveal the PIN code. Attempts to access the device using specialist software have been unsuccessful.

On November 26, police received a call from Wildgust’s step-father saying the defendant had turned up at his house and was refusing to leave, in breach of his bail conditions. The defendant was “fearful of being hurt in the community”.

Judge Geraint Walters said he was “constantly surprised” that people were continuing to appear before the courts for such offending given how skilled the police and those running decoy accounts were at identifying them, and given the repercussions for defendants which often included “being hounded from the community where they live”.

Emily Bennett, defending, said Wildgust had expressed “disgust” with himself for what he did. She said the breach of bail conditions happened when he “took refuge” at the address “after his identity became known in the community”.

Devon Wildgust, of Lon y Gruglas, Ammanford, pleaded guilty to two offences of attempted sexual communication with a child and one of attempting to incite a child to engage in a sexual act. He has no previous convictions.

With a discount for his guilty pleas, Judge Walters handed Wildgust a sentence of two years in prison. He will serve up to half the sentence in custody before being released on licence to serve the remainder in the community.

Wildgust must also register as a sex offender for the next 10 years and was made the subject of a sexual harm prevention order to run for the same length of time.