A ‘calculated’ father-of-two asked a 13-year-old girl to masturbate after sending her an explicit video and telling her she was too young, Swindon Crown Court heard.
Standing before Judge Jason Taylor QC today, 47-year-old Karl Johns pleaded guilty to inciting a child to engage in sexual activity involving the penetration of her vagina.
The defendant, formerly of Pickford Way, Abbey Meads, now resides with his father in North Street, Atherstone – a town north of Coventry, more than 100 miles away.
Crown prosecutor Giles Nelson said Johns initiated a conversation with a profile on Facebook with the forename Emma in the early hours of 24 October last year.
But the account wasn’t that of a real child named Emma, it was a decoy profile established on the social media platform by a paedophile hunter out to catch perpetrators.
Johns was told on several occasions the person behind the account was a 13-year-old girl, but he seemingly disregarded that fact and proceeded to turn the conversation sexualised.
He sent photographs of his penis and a video of him masturbating to the decoy before asking for a video back from her. He went on to explain how to masturbate and how he felt it should be performed. The girl was also encouraged to use Pornhub.
Later, he emphatically told her to delete her messages.
A group of paedophile hunters attended his home address on the same day as the messages were sent. He was confronted on his doorstep but chose to leave his home to discuss the matter with them in a nearby alleyway. The court was told that during the confrontation, he admitted what he had done.
During a police interview where he admitted knowing the girl’s age, Johns said he had been intoxicated and he could not recall the content of his messages. He told officers that he was not attracted to young girls, and felt sick and ashamed of what he had done.
Mr Nelson told of how the conversation continued after Johns had been to sleep. Waking up, supposedly not highly intoxicated, he continued to engage in sexual communication – including by asking the girl to send videos of herself masturbating.
“It can’t be passed off as one night’s drunken enterprise”, he commented.
Barrister Robin Shellard said his client had not gone to a specific website to seek out children to talk to, he did not hide his age or his identity and tried to exit the conversation with the girl, but the paedophile hunter attempted to continue it.
He said Johns had, at one point, messaged: “If you’re really 14, I’ll leave you alone” and “I shouldn’t be doing this, you’re too young… goodbye.”
Despite disclosing that he was drunk and wanted to go to sleep, the man behind the profile pushed for further communication.
The hunters don’t then go to the police, he said, they went to his doorstep and live-streamed the event. He said the incident put his wife and two six-year-old children at risk. He had to leave his home and move to Atherstone as a result.
He added that the police seized his devices but found no evidence of anything illegal.
“He is a middle-aged man who has lost everything. He only sees his children via Zoom… he is effectively homeless, with no settled address”, Mr Shellard said. “He was fired from his job, and he is unemployed for the first time in his life.”
He added: “The fall of this man has been enormous. His fault, he recognises that.”
Sentencing Johns to 26 months imprisonment, Judge Taylor described his behaviour as “calculated”.
“You may have been drunk but this was calculated behaviour. You certainly weren’t so drunk you didn’t know it was wrong”, he said.
Continuing: “She told you she was bleeding [from engaging in masturbation] and you told her there was nothing to worry about. You told her it was only because she had broken the seal.
“You, in that moment, were only interested in your own sexual gratification.
“You continued speaking to her the next morning, in the cold light of day.”
Judge Taylor took into account Johns’ previous good character, the personal consequences for him, his family and his children ahead of sentencing him.
He will be required to register as a sex offender for life and will be, alongside that, have to comply with a sexual harm prevention order for life.
