A FLINTSHIRE man caught out as a predator by decoy children has been jailed.

Shaun Sansom, 47, of Wood Lane in Hawarden appeared before a judge at Mold Crown Court on Tuesday, December 15.

He had admitted to multiple attempts of arranging sexual activity with children he believed were teenagers.

The prosecution told the court how these two young girls that Sansom was speaking with in May 2020 were in fact adults posing as children.

A group of ‘paedophile hunters’ who monitored social media and internet chatrooms to catch out online predators contacted North Wales Police with information about what had been exchanged between Sansom and these ‘girls’.

Sansom was reported to have used WhatsApp and another social media platform specifically for dating to speak with decoys named Libby, Abigail and Paige.

On April 15, speaking to Libby, Sansom lied about his age and claimed to be 19 and began telling her about his life before the conversations quickly turned sexual.

The court was told that he ‘pestered’ Libby for pictures of her in the bath in exchange for images of his penis.

Sansom approached his second victim – who he believed was called Abigail - online on April 25 and spoke with her for several weeks.

The court heard how Sansom told this girl he was 22 years old and was made aware that she was 14.

The court was told that messages were exchanged in which Sansom again turned their conversations sexual.

He asked to be her boyfriend and asked her questions about if she had ever been kissed and would like to have sex. There were also pictures exchanged by Sansom of his penis and in turn asked if Abigail would send naked photos to him

This ‘pestering’ for ‘just one picture’ continued for weeks, the judge was told.

Sansom later arranged to try and meet up with Abigail and continued having sexual chats up until late May.

A third decoy, going by the name of Paige, was approached by Sansom in early May and their encounter lasted less than a week.

The court was told that Sansom asked why his 13-year-old victim was using a dating site before he continued on with sexual chat.

He was said to have asked Paige for photos of her in her pyjamas and naked but these were refused by the decoy.

This did not deter Sansom who continued to speak with her for several days, bragging that he had a BMW and trying to arrange to ‘pick her up’. The prosecution says that the idea of sex being a ‘clear intention’.

The chat between Paige and Sansom moved over to WhatsApp for several days where he tried to video chat with the decoy and was reported to have told her not to tell her friends and family about their conversations to avoid trouble.

Mr Mintz, the defence, said that Sansom had indicated a guilty plea for his actions after being caught.

He adds that his client lived a ‘lonely and isolated life’ and was suffering with his mental health at the time of the offences.

Mr Mintz says that Sansom had no recent relationships with someone his own age, no social life and no hobbies.

He went on to say that the victims in this case were ‘thankfully fictional’ and that Sansom is ‘genuinely regretful’ of his behaviour.

Despite mitigation, the matter was deemed too serious to go without a prison sentence and was told he’d be put behind bars for two years.

Judge Rhys Rowlands said that the 47-year-old’s actions were ‘depraved’ and that he should have known better when messaging girls that were ‘young enough to be his daughters’.

He said: “Plainly, had these been children, as you were led to believe then potentially there would have been great risk of harm being caused to them.

“As far as you were concerned, you were dealing with young girls and you thought absolutely nothing when trying to corrupt them. At 47, you were more than 30 years older than these girls – you were old enough to have been their father should they have actually existed.

“Contact was repeated again and again over a period of weeks – going so far as to send explicit pictures. In your mind, these were going directly to young children and you were well aware of that.”

Sansom was also made the subject of a sexual harm prevention order and must make himself known as a sex offender for the next decade.