Ashford teenager groomed for sex by online pervert Craig Baillie
Craig Baillie encouraged
an Ashford girl to perform a sex act on webcam
by Paul Hooper
An Ashford teenager was seduced online by a 25-year-old man who
lured her to spend nights together.
Craig Baillie spent "at least" eight nights in bed and breakfast
hotels with the schoolgirl he had groomed for sex over the internet
using a false name.
Now the fiend – who was trapped because he forgot to erase his
conversations with the girl - has been jailed for five years and
four months.
Baillie, of Harrow, Middlesex, admitted 20 sex offences
including downloading disgusting child images and a specimen charge
of sexual activity with a child.
Canterbury Crown Court heard he had persuaded the girl to
run away to meet him in London – with her parents believing she was
staying with friends.
Baillie, who told the hotel owners the girl was 21, is now
regarded as posing a "high risk" of committing more sex offences
unless he was jailed.
The judge, Recorder Bobbie Cheema QC told him: "The number of
occasions this happened can't be identified but it was certainly
more than eight occasions.
"The Metropolitan Police were alerted to your presence on a
file-sharing website on which illegal images of children were
present."
Officers then raided his home and took away a laptop and a hard
drive.
"That hard drive had saved – probably without your knowledge –
chatlogs you had with a child in which in which you encouraged her
to perform a sex act on camera. I have read them and it is clear
that you were leading that child on," she added.
The girl – who was tracked down by detectives – had told the
devious pervert she had to wait until her parents were asleep
before carrying out other sex acts.
The judge said: "It is quite clear you and the child were
speaking in sexually explicit terms, but you were the prime mover
in this. You claimed you thought at first she was older than she
was but by the time you went away with her you were well aware of
her true age.
"She regarded herself as your girlfriend and I have seen an
impact statement from her and make no mistake just how badly
damaged that young woman now is. She has lost her trust and finds
it difficult to get on with her life."
Among the child sex images seized on Baillie's computer included
some at the most disgusting level five – including
20-minute rape movies "showing children in distress", the
court was told.
The judge added: "It is hard for ordinary people to understand
how a young man could become interested in images of children being
abused and in distress."
27/02/13
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