Swansea Crown Court (Image: Camerania / Alamy Stock Photo)
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A man described by a judge as “a committed paedophile” has been sentenced to five years in prison after he tried to sexually communicate with what he believed was a 12-year-old girl on Snapchat – while already on bail for possessing hundreds of child sexual abuse images and videos.
David Lewis, 42, of Ashdale Lane, Pembroke, was sentenced at Swansea Crown Court after admitting seven offences spanning both the indecent images and the contact with the decoy account, which was being operated by a police officer.
The investigation
Prosecutor Craig Jones told the court that police attended Lewis’s home on August 6 last year and seized three mobile phones. Child sexual abuse material was identified during an initial scan, and Lewis was placed under arrest.
A subsequent forensic examination of the devices revealed 385 indecent images of children across all three severity categories. The most serious Category A material accounted for 263 of those images, with 71 classified as Category B and 51 as Category C. The overwhelming majority were videos – 246 at Category A, 55 at Category B, and 37 at Category C.
The court also heard that Lewis had used the Telegram messaging app on July 27 to send one of the Category A images to another user. The image showed a girl aged between 10 and 12 being raped by an adult male.
Lewis was released on bail while the full examination of his phones continued.
Messaging a ‘child’ while on bail
Despite being subject to bail conditions that prohibited unsupervised contact with children, Lewis added a Snapchat profile he believed belonged to a 12-year-old girl on November 10.
When the account – actually a police decoy – responded that she was 12 years old and at school, Lewis told her he was 20 and sent an image of a much younger man.
He continued to message her over the following days, at one point writing: “I really want to see you or your friend in uniform. Horny.”
Lewis also instructed the supposed child to go to the toilet and take a photograph of herself with her top open. During a video call on Snapchat, he exposed his erect penis and began masturbating.
Officers who arrested Lewis and searched his home were able to match the bathroom and his clothing to what appeared in the video footage.
Sentencing
Lewis pleaded guilty to attempted sexual communication with a child, attempted incitement of a child to engage in sexual activity, attempting to cause a child to watch sexual activity, distributing an indecent image of a child, and three offences of making indecent images of children.
Defence barrister Dan Griffiths told the court: “He’s nothing but realistic about the position he finds himself in.”
Mr Griffiths said Lewis attributed his offending to “feelings of loneliness and isolation he subsequently experienced” after the breakdown of a relationship, and added: “The defendant’s best mitigation is the timing of his guilty pleas.”
Judge Paul Thomas KC described Lewis as “a committed paedophile” and sentenced him to a total of five years’ imprisonment.
Lewis must register as a sex offender for life and was made the subject of a sexual harm prevention order for 10 years.
