AN ELLESMERE Port man was sentenced to a three-year community order after he admitted inciting two 12-year-olds to expose themselves via a webcam.
Carl Hodson, 26, of Princes Road, admitted using a fake internet profile on social networking websites and using instant messaging (IM) software to entice the girls to take off their tops.
The offences took place between May and August 2008, although Hodson had got to know the girls, from the Devon area, from two or three years before the offences took place.
Chester Crown Court heard one of the two girls had been communicating with Hodson, using the fake name of ‘Lee, aged 19’ via IM when the girl’s friend appeared with her on a webcam one day. Hodson was also using a fake image.
In the summer of 2008, during one chat, Hodson encouraged one girl to expose herself and his messages became more sexual.
Police arrested Hodson in January 2009 and a search of his computer and mobile phone also revealed indecent images of children.
Caroline Harris, defending, said: “The client is someone with considerable learning difficulties,” to which Judge David Hale added: “He is very vulnerable and is not the usual type of offender.”
Hodson was sentenced to the community order with a supervision requirement, and to attend a sex offender groupwork programme in Northumbria.
He was also placed on the sex offenders register for five years, and during this time must not own or use a computer or mobile phone with access to the internet, unless in a place of employment or in a library.
His computer and mobile phone were confiscated and destroyed.
Judge Hale added: “Although prison would be very harsh for you, if you did it again you will go there.”
