Man sent sexual messages to ‘girls’ from hospital bed

A man sent sexually explicit messages to three people he believed to be young teenage girls – while lying in a hospital bed recovering from heart surgery.

Adrian Sine, 43, discussed sexual matters and told the contacts he wanted to be their “daddy”, saying he had always wanted a daughter so he could have sex with them. He also told them the chats were “our little secret” and warned them not to tell anyone or they would “get daddy into trouble”.

Unknown to Sine, all three social media profiles – purporting to belong to girls aged 13 and 14 – were actually being operated by adults from the same paedophile hunter group.

Swansea Crown Court heard that between 19 and 25 March last year, Sine sent a series of explicit messages from his hospital bed, talking about the size of his penis, asking intimate questions about the decoys’ bodies, and requesting pictures. He even suggested meeting up with one of them once he was discharged.

To track down the defendant’s address, a member of the online group created a fake Facebook profile posing as an old school friend and offered to send him a “get well soon” card. The details of the conversations were then passed to police and Sine was arrested.

When questioned, Sine admitted what he had done was “wrong” and said “things got out of hand”.

The court heard Sine, now of Oystermouth Road, Swansea, was originally from Llanelli and had spent more than a decade working in theatre after studying electrical engineering. His barrister, Ian Ibrahim, said Sine had “lost everything he had in life” due to the stigma of his offending – his good name, his relationship, his family, and his home – and was now living in a B&B. He said his client’s reluctance to engage with probation stemmed from shame and embarrassment, adding: “He wants help.”

However, Judge Geraint Walters said it was “mindboggling” that Sine had engaged in such behaviour while on a hospital ward. He said he had “rarely read such a disappointing pre-sentence report”, noting the probation officer had found Sine gave “not a word of explanation”, denied having a sexual interest in children, and “was neither committed nor motivated to address his offending”.

The judge said he had been driven to the conclusion that Sine has a “deep-rooted sexual interest in young teenage girls”, and noted the probation officer had concluded the risk he poses cannot currently be managed in the community. He added that members of the public may be surprised to learn the maximum sentence available for the offence was just two years in prison.

Sine, who has no previous convictions, had pleaded guilty to three counts of attempting to engage in sexual communications with a child. He was sentenced to 12 months in prison for each offence, to run concurrently. He will serve up to half in custody before being released on licence.

He was also made subject to a 10-year sexual harm prevention order and must register as a sex offender for the same period.