@offenceregister: He found his soul mate in a 13-year-old girl 👇 FULL CASE DETAILS BELOW 👇 A 61-year-old man from Littlehampton who arranged to meet who he believed was a 13-year-old schoolgirl after setting up a fake teenage Facebook persona has been jailed for 19 months. Southend Crown Court heard that Paul Valentine, of Littlehampton, West Sussex, connected with what he thought was a young girl online, though the profile was an undercover decoy run by a paedophile hunter group using AI-generated images. Valentine became fixated, saving the child's picture as his computer desktop background and stating he viewed it each night before sleeping. Over a month, Valentine sent around 1,500 messages, calling the supposed child his “soul mate” and arranging to meet her at Rochford railway station before visiting Southend seafront. To deceive the girl’s parents, Valentine created a bogus profile posing as a 14-year-old boy, instructing the child to tell her family she was meeting the teenager while Valentine would act as the boy’s father. Judge Shane Collery KC rejected Valentine's trial claim that he was baiting a scammer, finding he harboured sexual intentions towards a child. Assessed by probation officers as presenting a continuous high risk to children, Valentine was convicted by a jury of attempting to meet a child following sexual grooming and handed an immediate 19-month custodial sentence. Image - Anonymous Artist Impression #ukcrime #uknews #courtnews #truecrimeuk #publicsafety

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Tuesday 13 October 2026 17:00:00 GMT