Man who travelled to meet decoy girl at park jailed for 28 months

Peter Durrant, who was 72 at the time, made the journey to Ipswich after several weeks of online chats with an undercover police officer who was posing as the stepfather of a teenager called ‘Riley’, Ipswich Crown Court heard.

During the chat, which started in October last year, the undercover officer told Durrant that he had had sex with the girl and that he’d kept it quiet from his girlfriend, said David Baird, prosecuting.

Durrant told the officer what he wanted to do to the girl and said “the younger the better”.

Durrant arranged to meet the undercover officer and “Riley” in a tea room in Christchurch Park, Ipswich in September last year and when he got there he was arrested by police.

Durrant had with him a bag for life which contained items including sex toys, rope, canes, pegs and a box of chocolate, said Mr Baird.

When he was interviewed by police he made full admissions about the reason for his visit to Ipswich and said he would only have had sex with the girl if she consented and wouldn’t have done anything she hadn’t wanted to do.

Jailing Durrant for 28 months, Judge Emma Peters said: “Children need to be protected from people like you who make arrangements to abuse them.”

She said the offence had involved considerable planning and she described the contents of the bag for life as “deeply disturbing.”

Judge Peters said Durrant appeared to lead a relatively lonely life and had been a hard worker during his working life.

Durrant, of Blenheim Close, Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, admitted arranging or facilitating sexual activity with a child between August and September last year.

In addition to being jailed he was made the subject of a sexual harm prevention order for ten years and ordered to sign the sex offenders’ register for the same period.

Simon Gladwell for Durrant said his client had no previous convictions and was very sorry for what he’d done.