Walsall man in online sex talk with 'girl of 14' avoids jail
A Walsall man, who had a sexually explicit internet chat room conversation with who he thought was a 14-year-old a girl has been spared jail.
In fact the 'child' was a police officer who had invented the profile as a decoy to weed out perverts, a judge heard.
Richard Instone responded within six hours of it being uploaded in June last year, Wolverhampton Crown Court was told.
The 29-year-old posed as somebody aged 19 called Steve Smith and sent indecent images of himself to her, at least one of which included details of his real name, said Mr Paul Spratt, prosecuting.
He arranged a meeting for which he had supposedly booked a hotel room but backed out at the last minute.
Mr Spratt conceded: "The girl never existed and he never intended to meet her."
The defendant was arrested at his home on August 10 and told police that comments made by him during the internet exchanges were 'all in his imagination'.
Instone from The Parkway, Shelfield, admitted sexual communication with a child and was given a six-month jail sentence suspended for two years. He was also put on the Sex Offenders Register for 10 years.
Judge Nicholas Webb told him: "This was in part, if not in whole, a fantasy but you were treading a very dangerous line and if anything like this happens again you can be confident you will be going into custody."
