Former Chesterfield pub landlord had indecent videos of children as young as four

Paul Frith’s home was raided by police after he told a paedophile hunter decoy posing online as a 12-year-old girl he wanted to “take her virginity”.

Derby Crown Court heard Frith, 57, had arranged to meet the decoy in Nottingham however he later cancelled but “repeatedly indicated a wish to have intercourse with her”.

Victoria Rose, prosecuting, told the court Frith began chatting with the decoy - who told him she was aged 12 - online in January 2019 and their communications later moved to WhatsApp.

When the decoy handed evidence over to police they arrested him and seized his computer, finding nearly 150 images - including 86 videos.

She said: “The youngest child was aged between one and four years old and featured in a video.”

Judge Martin Hurst told Frith: “Until you got involved in this unacceptable behaviour you hadn’t been in trouble with the police for a very long period of time.

“You were working as a licensee - you were obviously lonely and isolated and you took up an interest in looking at indecent images of children.

“And the descriptions of those images would revolt anyone who has the duty of reading them.

“What is important is that those are images of real children who are being abused in real time - they’re young and they’re moving images. It’s all a very serious matter.”

Speaking about Frith’s online chats with the decoy, the judge said “from a risk point of view” the defendant had cancelled the arranged meeting.

He added: “It’s therefore possible to conclude this was drunken fantasy rather than someone who posed a real risk to children.

“Apart from those who are genuinely being abused in the images you were looking at - they’re abused so people like you can look at them.

“So this is not, by any means, a victimless crime.”

Eddie Leonard, mitigating for Frith, said almost two years down the line her client felt “totally stupid” about the offence.

She said: “At that time he was drinking a considerable amount of alcohol.

“He left his rented accommodation because his name was on a public forum and his address and he had been threatened.

“He has come with his bags packed today prepared to go to prison.”

However Ms Leonard asked the judge to suspend any custodial sentence to allow Frith better support for his alcoholism in the community.

Firth, of Main Street, Chesterfield, admitted attempting to engage in sexual communication with a child, possessing extreme pornographic images, distributing an indecent photograph of a child, making an indecent photograph of a child and possessing prohibited images of children.

He was jailed for 21 months suspended for two years with 36 rehabilitation activity days and made subject of a sexual harm prevention order for 10 years.

The defendant was also ordered to pay £250 court costs.

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