Douglas Hutchings, 74 formally of High Street Maldon, Essex was on trial after grooming who he thought was a young boy for sex in Maldon Promenade Park.
He was arrested for the offence June 20th 2017 after he spent just two days grooming the decoy child, and turned up at the park.
Hutchings said how he would like to go for a walk and carry out oral sex on the child, and how both Hutchings and the child will be hot afterwards.
He told the child what busses he needed to get from Chelmsford to the park in Maldon, and arranged to meet him at the gates.
The worrying thing is our investigators arrived at the park and there was children there on a school trip, lots of children in the water area. We managed to get him to meet the Police out of the ways as not to cause any stress worry to the public.
The situation was extremely well handled by the officers from Essex Police and he was quickly taken into custody. As we are not a vigilante group, and only pass or information to the police for them to carry out the intercept, no one at the park was aware and all evidence was gathered easily.
Once in custody he was interviewed and blamed the whole situation on his past and that he went to help the child as he did in previous months when he met a real young lad in previous months.
He agreed he is not trained to give advice but said it was unsafe for children to be online. Even though he stated he wanted to meet for the purposes of oral sex, then went onto ask if the boy has had sex before with an older man, it was all a lie to try and protect the child.
So once charged for the offence of arranging to meet a child under the age of 16 for the purpose of sex, was sent to Chelmsford Magistrates Court, then onto Chelmsford Crown Court where he pleaded not guilty.
It was then set for a three day trial at Chelmsford Crown Court and this started on Monday 25 June. Our evidence was given followed by the officer in the case from Essex Police then Hutchings himself gave evidence. Then today the Jury left the court room to decide if he was guilty or not guilty. We then all returned after lunch with Hutchings in the dock with his head in is hands, that the foreman of the Jury said they found Hutchings Guilty of the offence.
The case was then adjourned for court reports to be carried out by the probation service. He was released on court bail and is required to live and stay at his home address. He has now also been registered on the sex offenders register.
The sentence hearing will be heard at Chelmsford Crown court in July 2018.
This should come as a warning for the people who think it is ok to meet a child for the purposes of sex, it is not right, its against the law and you will be found guilty.
The offenders seem to make all the excuses they can as to why they met the child, but it is obvious that the Jury’s can see though these lies and will find them guilty.
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