Mum poses as daughter on Facebook to catch paedophile
A MUM turned detective after overhearing her daughter tell friends about a 21-year-old man she had met on Facebook, arranged to meet him - and tipping off police, who arrested him when he arrived.
A MOTHER who posed as her teenage daughter to trap an internet pervert is furious after the courts spared him from a jail term.
Kieran Clough, 23, was given a community sentence despite arming himself with weapons and a sex manual to meet up with the 15-year-old.
A court heard how he groomed her on Facebook, sending intimate pictures of himself and posting explicit messages.
He offered to buy her presents in return for meeting up for sex, but his plan was scuppered when the girl's mother discovered the messages.
Posing as her daughter, she arranged to meet him - then tipped off police who went to arrest him when he arrived.
Clough was described in court as "at high risk of re-offending". When officers raided his home they found more than 900 child porn images and seven movies on his computer.
But he was let off with a community sentence after a judge at Newcastle Crown Court said he needed treatment rather than prison.
Yesterday, the girl's mother said the family was "traumatised" by the experience and hit out at Clough's soft sentence.
"The police said they were classing him as a serious sexual predatory pedophile because he had indecent images of children and that scared me," she said.
"The system sucks. You'd think some guy who has been caught with indecent images of children would get a custodial sentence.
"That's what scares me - they are letting them walk about still."
The mother, who cannot be named, turned detective after overhearing her daughter tell friends about a 21-year-old man she had met on Facebook.
She then demanded to see all the messages between them, and was horrified to find their graphic content.
Prosecutor Katherine Dunn told the court the mother sent a message to Clough from the account, saying: "I'm ringing the police now and reporting you for picking young girls up and asking them for sex, you pervert."
When he continued to send messages, she took over her daughter's account and arranged a meeting posing as the girl.
When officers arrested him, they found a bottle of vodka, female underwear including a basque, a book on sex toys, a knuckle duster and a police baton.
Clough, a garage worker from Chester le Street in County Durham, had used a fake name while messaging the girl and knew she was 15 throughout. He admitted grooming, possessing indecent photographs of children and having offensive weapons.
Judge Penny Moreland sentenced Clough to a community order for three years and ordered him to sign the sex offenders' register.
The judge told him: "I am sure your intention in meeting her was not to commit non-consensual offences but I am quite sure you intended to have sex with her if you could."
Speaking after the case, the girl's mother, who is 37 and from Wearside, said that she is "thankful every day that she hadn't been raped or murdered. All the things that were found in his car prove it wasn't just an innocent ride out.
"At the time she was an impressionable 15-year-old girl, a boy fancied her and she was flattered.
"Reading those things that somebody's saying to your child and the replies that she was putting...I was absolutely traumatised and disgusted."
She added that her daughter became terrified when her parents explained how dangerous the situation was and began having nightmares.
"Parents need to check their kids' phones and check their computers - watch what they are doing.
"I feel sorry for my kids in a way because they have no privacy but not respecting their privacy has stopped my daughter getting into a situation she would never be able to handle.
"You don't know who you're talking to online, you don't know who the people are behind the pictures.
"You're looking at a picture of this gorgeous 17-year-old guy who could really be a 45-year-old bloke - and they're so clever about it," she said.
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