Ipswich: Man is jailed for sending indecent photos of himself to girl, 14

A 34-year-old Ipswich man who sent thousands of “lewd and obscene” messages to a 14-year-old schoolgirl during which he suggested they meet up to have sex has been jailed for two years.

Thomas Read, of Oxford Road, told the girl he was 24 and lived in York and sent her a “torrent” of messages over a six week period including indecent pictures of himself, Ipswich Crown Court heard.

Read admitted attempting to incite the schoolgirl to engage in sexual activity between October 10 and December 14, 2012, and three offences of downloading child porn in June last year.

Jailing him for two years, Judge John Holt described the messages he sent the girl as “suggestive, lewd, obscene and graphic”.

“Over a period there were thousands of messages and it may well be there were more because some of them were automatically deleted after a period of time,” the judge said. “They clearly suggested meeting for sex.”

In addition to jailing Read he made him the subject of a sexual offences prevention order.

Rebecca Fairbairn, prosecuting, told the court the girl exchanged messages with Read after one of her friends had been in contact with him and asked her to find out more about him as Read had told her he was 14 and came from Halifax.

She said the indecent images download by Read were at the lowest level of child porn.

Gavin Burrell, for Read, said his client had been “living in a fantasy world” and had not had any physical contact with the girl.

“He has expressed remorse,” said Mr Burrell.