February 2021

Pervert hacked into a woman’s account to try and meet up with underage children

A paedophile who hacked into a woman’s account to try and meet up with underage children has been spared jail.

Christopher Matthew, 32, accessed a 28-year-old woman’s dating profile to send explicit messages to what he believed to be a 12-year-old girl called Jasmine.

In fact he was sending pictures of a woman’s breasts and suggesting ‘cuddles’ at a hotel to a paedophile hunting group called Fleetwood Enforcers.

The team managed to track Matthew down in Rochdale and posted a video of the moment they confronted him.

He appeared in Minshull Street Crown Court where he was given a six-month prison sentence suspended for 18 months.

Recorder Eric Lamb said: ‘It has been made clear that Emma was not in any way involved in what you were doing. Yet you requested to meet up in a hotel in Blackpool. You asked the other person, Jasmine, to show her naked breasts. After the identity of Emma was known, you carried on but were now appearing as a man and you suggested meeting up and sleeping together.

‘This is a type of case in which there wasn’t any possibility of genuine contact, because there was no genuine victim, so no victim was harmed as a result of what you did. But there was plenty of intention.’