Paedophile who claimed sick chats with ‘girl, 12’, was ‘role-playing fantasy’ faces jail


A married paedophile is facing jail for grooming a 12-year-old girl online – which turned out to be an undercover police officer.
Paul Appleton, 47, sent a string of vile messages thinking he was communicating with a schoolgirl after joining an adult sex site.
But it was in fact a specially trained police officer posing as a child online to “smoke out” paedophiles.
When he was arrested Appleton tried to wriggle out of his sick crimes claiming he believed he was in a “role-playing fantasy” with an adult woman.
But his lies were dismissed as “ludicrous” after he was found guilty of attempting to incite a child under the age of 13 to engage in sexual activity.
Appleton, of Long Lawford, Warwickshire, was warned he faces prison following the verdict at Warwick Crown Court on Friday.
Judge Anthony Potter told him: “You ran a ludicrous defence in the face of overwhelming evidence.”
Th court heard Appleton started communicating with the girl on social media while his wife was away from home last October.
Prosecutor Stefan Kolodynski said: “He’s charged with attempting to incite a girl under the age of 13 to engage in sexual activity, i.e. to undress herself and play with herself.
“At the time his wife was away from home, and in October last year he decided to access a social media platform.
“He registered on a sex chat site on which the minimum age one can select when registering is 18, so we can take from that that this is an adult platform site.”
He used the name PaulUK47, and began a conversation on the afternoon of October 3 with someone called Maya18.
Mr Kolodynski said: “What he did not know was that in fact there was a police operation, Project Atari, where specially-trained officers accessed such sites in order to smoke out people with sexual interests in children.
“Its aim is to protect children, and in fact Maya18 was a specialist officer who goes by the pseudonym TobyToby.
“No doubt it will be urged on you that by chatting to someone called Maya18 that he believed that person was 18.
“But if anyone reads the transcript of the chat, it soon turns out that he knew he was talking to a young girl aged 12.”
During one chat session he asked Maya: “Are you horny?”
The reply was that Maya was “only nearly 13” and Mr Kolodynski added: “Members of the jury, if you were on a chat platform like this and you saw that message, it would set alarm bells ringing – but not to Mr Appleton.
“He clearly tries to discover where she is and if she’s alone.”
Believing he was talking to a 12-year-old girl, he told her: “Having fun is so nice. Why not do it? Take off your clothes and caress yourself.”
Appleton described the sex act he was performing, and that “girls love it, bouncing on me,” and sent her an explicit picture of himself.
Appleton arranged to meet the girl at the entrance of an Asda supermarket in Rugby, Warks.
The covert police officer then traced Appleton to his home where he was arrested on November 7.
Appleton was bailed and ordered to return to court next month for sentencing.