Paedophile Hunter Group Victim Jailed for Four Years

A man who sent pictures of himself wearing ladies underwear to a "13-year-old girl" set up by a paedophile hunter group has been jailed for four years.

Michael Hall, 53, sent the girl sexually explicit messages instructing her to use fruit as a sex toy. He met the girl on the 18+ website Loveoo and repeatedly requested she send pictures of herself in her underwear or a swimsuit. The former Berkshire man, who has since moved to France, also sent explicit images of himself using a sex toy.

Despite attempts to meet up, Hall is said to have gotten cold feet. Ahead of a surprise meeting in Reading, he told the girl she was too young and he was scared of going to prison. The girl Hall thought he was speaking to was, in fact, a member of a so-called paedophile hunter group called the Geordie Chasers.

The group confronted him outside Reading railway station in mid-2018 after he travelled to meet the girl. Hall had denied a slew of child sex offences, telling police that he believed the girl was an adult. However, jurors at Oxford Crown Court earlier this week returned unanimous guilty verdicts to seven charges, including attempted sexual communication with a child, attempting to incite a child to engage in sexual activity, attempting to cause a child to watch a sexual act and attempting to meet a child after sexual activity.

Sending him down for four years, Judge Ian Pringle QC said: "Your defence that you knew all along that the person with whom you were texting was a woman aged between 18 and 24 was flatly rejected by the jury. By their verdicts they found you did, indeed, believe she was 13 years of age."