Labour Councillor (Durham), Derrick Payne – Arrested by Police following a sex attack.
Bringing online sexual predators to justice is a mammoth task for UK police forces. Offenders have the ever-evolving and expanding technology of the internet to seek out their young victims which has made catching them a constantly evolving crusade for the police.
Child grooming offences have seen an 'enormous' rise across Wales, the NSPCC warned in October.
Grooming offences have risen by more than 200% in one year, ONS figures show, with 119 offences in Wales in 2016-2017 compared to 36 the previous year.
But one groomer is now behind bars after a major police investigation to build a case against him.
Neil Antony Derrick Payne, 43, who was described as a 'devious, persistent and prolific sex offender' by the judge who locked him up for 10 years, was caught as part of a nationwide investigation into 120 potential victims of online grooming, led by Dyfed-Powys Police.
Payne would pretend to be a teenage boy when he contacted 'hundreds' of young girls from across the UK. After contacting girls online Payne, of Pentre Morgan near Bronwydd, Carmarthen, tried to get them to meet his fictitious uncle in person in an attempt to encourage them to engage in sexual activity.
He was arrested after a teenage girl reported making contact with a man who had been purporting to be a 17-year-old boy on Facebook.
Those who worked to bring Payne to justice explained how they conducted an intense digital investigation into social media profiles set up by Payne. Computers were seized from his home and were examined by the force's Digital Communications and Cyber Crime Unit (DCCU).
A forensic examination of devices seized from Payne revealed that he had set up 11 different profiles over Facebook, WhatsApp, Skype, Oovoo, Snapchat and Kik. His fake profiles featured photographs of young males aged 15-17 years.
The force said Payne would trawl the internet for contacts and target teenage girls. Using these fake accounts, he had been sending friend requests to girls across the UK for around 18 months. On Facebook alone, 172 people accepted his friend request.
Images, videos and text conversations were extracted, as well as information from social media profiles which were used to identify how many of the girls behind the 500 usernames were potential victims.
A DCCU analyst formatted 15,000 lines of text over each social media network into individual conversations between Payne and the girls he befriended. She quickly established a pattern, with his most frequent conversation opener used 119 times. He would say they had friends in common, or that he had recently moved to the area and wanted to meet people.
Detective Sergeant Mathew Davies, of the Police Online Investigation Team, said "His intent was to send a mass message out to young girls using these regular lines. He was in contact with hundreds of people over his various accounts – starting off requesting random people as friends, and then working through their friend list to add others."
"Our analyst pulled out conversations with each girl, so even if he moved people to different platforms to chat we could still track what had been said between them. He had a pattern of conversation, and would try to move the girls onto Snapchat or Skype, saying his uncle was lonely and needed friends."
"He was then pretending to be this boy’s uncle on these accounts."
DI Butler, of Carmarthen CID, added "In many cases we only had online usernames to go by in trying to find and contact the people we needed to speak to. There were a number of enquiries to try and identify where they lived, with forces across the country helping to make contact with them."
Following his arrest in October 2017 Payne was charged with a total of eight offences – meeting a girl aged under 16 following grooming, five counts of causing or inciting a girl aged 13 to 15 to engage in sexual activity, and two counts of possessing indecent photographs or pseudo photographs of a child.
In December 2017 Payne pleaded guilty to all eight offences at Swansea Crown Court. On Wednesday, January 31, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison, with a further five years on license.
Detective Inspector Jayne Butler, of Carmarthen CID said "We are pleased with the sentence handed to Payne for these predatory offences. He took on the guise of a teenage boy to specifically target young girls online, gaining their trust before attempting to groom them."
"A complex investigation which spanned numerous other forces has resulted in putting him behind bars, which I hope is some consolation to his victims. This sentence just goes to show that people cannot hide behind pseudonyms to commit what they believe are faceless crimes via social media."
But she also spoke of her other concerns surrounding the case. "What is worrying is how willing some young people are to engage with strangers on the internet." she said.
"I would really like to urge parents of teenagers, male or female, to be aware of who their children are talking to. It might be difficult, but please try to find a way to talk to them about the dangers that can be posed on social media."
"Please urge them to stop and think if they receive a friend request from someone they don't know – it might not be the person they say they are."
"We know from just this one investigation that teenagers are willing to accept friend requests from people they don't know and have never met, which has the potential to put them at risk of harm."