The case of ‘RE’ and Dolly the Decoy

Court Report: 3^rd August 2020 @ Snaresbrook Crown Court

It is 10am and I’m before His Honour Judge P Southern in Court 5 and the sentencing hearing of a man with the initials ‘RE’ is about to begin – I’ll explain why he’s not being named at the end.

The case before me is one count of attempted sexual communication with a child contrary to section 15A of the Sexual Offences Act 2003.  ‘RE’ has pleaded guilty at the first opportunity.

Readers familiar with my last visit will be pleased to know the canteen has reopened and I’m freshly caffeinated for what’s to come.

As is very quickly revealed no child was at risk. ‘RE’ was in fact communicating with a 13-year-old decoy named Dolly, put up by one of the ever-increasing number of Pedophile Hunter Groups (“PHG”).  The judge described this as an “entirely legitimate purpose”. 

It’s explained that the messaging took place back in March 2019 when ‘RE’ was on holiday in Cyprus with his Girlfriend.  In the messages ‘Dolly’ makes it clear she is only 13 and it appears ‘RE’ is willing to travel from London up to Manchester to see her upon his return to the UK.

He mentions his flight details to her and lo and behold a PHG is waiting for him at Stanstead Airport.  The encounter is broadcast live on Facebook complete with admissions by ‘RE’ that he is “sick in the head”.  Efforts to find this video have so far been unsuccessful.

The defence puts forward some mitigating factors:

• ‘RE’ co-operated throughout
• There has been stress on him and his family
• Affected ability to gain permanent employment and personal relationships
• His life has been in Limbo for the 17 months since date of the offence occurring
• He suffered immense personal humiliation during the encounter at the airport

It is submitted that he’s lived his life on the internet from a young age and so is not adept at real life relationships.

The prosecution submits that the offence should be aggravated by an explicit picture that was sent.

The court decides the Sentence should be 12 months custody, reduced to 8 months because of the credit introduced by the early guilty plea.  Unpaid work totalling 150 hours and a contribution towards costs of some £500 is imposed too.  However, the sentence is suspended for 2 years so whilst ‘RE’ walks from court a free man he’s also subject to 10 years on the Sex offenders register and a 5-year-sexual-harm prevention order.

So why can’t I name him?  Well I only have his name.  No age, no picture and no address.  The harm that could be caused to someone who shares the same name by being unfairly connected to such a serious crime is a risk that’s just too great.

Notices posted outside the courtrooms do advise the media that they can request all the information necessary to correctly identify someone.  If you want to know who this person is you’ll have to read about it in the newspaper – except in this case you won’t. 

The press bench was empty.  I was the only member of the public present.

A few minutes of searching reveals Google has no record of this chap anywhere on the internet.  This may well be the only public record of this mans crime – and he’s not even named.